POLITICAL  ESSAYS 


BY 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL 


BOSTON   AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 


1888 


Copyright,  1888, 
BY  JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL. 

All  rights  reserved. 

3 


The  Riverside,  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


I  HAVE  been  often  urged  to  reprint  the  articles 
which  form  the  bulk  of  this  volume,  by  persons 
who  had  found  them  interesting  at  the  time  of 
their  first  publication,  as  well  as  by  others  who 
had  read  them  more  recently  and  thought  them  of 
some  interest  even  now.  I  have  steadily  refused 
to  do  what  was  asked  of  me,  because  the  greater 
part  of  what  is  here  gathered  together  seemed  to 
me  to  have  mainly  a  polemic  value  contempora 
neous  with  the  date  at  which  it  was  written.  I 
have  (I  know  not  how  wisely)  allowed  myself  to 
be  persuaded  that  there  was  also  in  these  papers  a 
certain  historical  interest  as  recalling  aspects  of 
our  politics  which  perhaps  it  may  be  useful  not 
wholly  to  forget.  In  looking  at  them  again,  after 
so  long  an  interval  (for  the  latest  of  them  is  more 
than  twenty  years  old),  it  gratifies  me  to  find  so 
little  to  regret  in  their  tone,  and  that  I  was  able  to 
keep  my  head  fairly  clear  of  passion  when  my 
heart  was  at  boiling-point. 


CONTENTS. 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY         .        .        .        .        .  1 

THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER         .....  17 

E  PLURIBUS  UNUM     .     '   .  .        .        .        .        .45 

THE  PICKENS-AND-STEAUN'S  REBELLION        ...  75 

GENERAL  MCCLELLAN'S  REPORT         .....  92 

THE  REBELLION:  ITS  CAUSES  AND  CONSEQUENCES        .  118 

McCLELLAN   OR  LINCOLN  ?  .            .            .           .            .           .           .  153 

RECONSTRUCTION      .        .-       .        .        .        ^       .        .  177 

SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,  OR  KILL  IT?     .....  206 

THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP     .....  231 

THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION      «        .        .        .        .  250 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS    .       .  295 

^* 


POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 


THE  AMEKICAN  TKACT  SOCIETY. 

1858. 

THERE  was  no  apologue  more  popular  in  the 
Middle  Ages  than  that  of  the  hermit,  who,  musing 
on  the  wickedness  and  tyranny  of  those  whom  the 
inscrutable  wisdom  of  Providence  had  intrusted 
with  the  government  of  the  world,  fell  asleep,  and 
awoke  to  find  himself  the  very  monarch  whose 
abject  life  and  capricious  violence  had  furnished 
the  subject  of  his  moralizing.  Endowed  with 
irresponsible  power,  tempted  by  passions  whose 
existence  in  himself  he  had  never  suspected,  and 
betrayed  by  the  political  necessities  of  his  position, 
he  became  gradually  guilty  of  all  the  crimes  and 
the  luxury  which  had  seemed  so  hideous  to  him  in 
his  hermitage  over  a  dish  of  water-cresses. 

The  American  Tract  Society  from  small  begin 
nings  has  risen  to  be  the  dispenser  of  a  yearly 
revenue  of  nearly  half  a  million.  It  has  become 
a  great  establishment,  with  a  traditional  policy, 
with  the  distrust  of  change  and  the  dislike  of  dis 
turbing  questions  (especially  of  such  as  would 
lessen  its  revenues)  natural  to  great  establishments. 


2  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

It  had  been  poor  and  weak;  it  has  become  rich 
and  powerful.  The  hermit  has  become  king. 

If  the  pious  men  who  founded  the  American 
Tract  Society  had  been  told  that  within  forty  years 
they  would  be  watchful  of  their  publications,  lest, 
by  inadvertence,  anything  disrespectful  might  be 
spoken  of  the  African  Slave-trade,  —  that  they 
would  consider  it  an  ample  equivalent  for  compul 
sory  dumbness  on  the  vices  of  Slavery,  that  their 
colporteurs  could  awaken  the  minds  of  Southern 
brethren  to  the  horrors  of  St.  Bartholomew,  —  that 
they  would  hold  their  peace  about  the  body  of 
Cuffee  dancing  to  the  music  of  the  cart-whip,  pro 
vided  only  they  could  save  the  soul  of  Sambo  alive 
by  presenting  him  a  pamphlet,  which  he  could  not 
read,  on  the  depravity  of  the  double  shuffle,  —  that 
they  would  consent  to  be  fellow  members  in  the 
Tract  Society  with  him  who  sold  their  fellow  mem 
bers  in  Christ  on  the  auction  block,  if  he  agreed 
with  them  in  condemning  Transubstantiation  (and 
it  would  not  be  difficult  for  a  gentleman  who  ig 
nored  the  real  presence  of  God  in  his  brother  man 
to  deny  it  in  the  sacramental  wafer),  —  if  those 
excellent  men  had  been  told  this,  they  would  have 
shrunk  in  horror,  and  exclaimed,  "  Are  thy  ser 
vants  dogs,  that  they  should  do  these  things  ?  " 

Yet  this  is  precisely  the  present  position  of  the 
Society. 

There  are  two  ways  of  evading  the  responsibility 
of  such  inconsistency.  The  first  is  by  an  appeal  to 
the  Society's  Constitution,  and  by  claiming  to  in 
terpret  it  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY.  3 

law  as  applied  to  contracts,  whether  between  indi 
viduals  or  States.  The  second  is  by  denying  that 
Slavery  is  opposed  to  the  genius  of  Christianity, 
and  that  any  moral  wrongs  are  the  necessary  re 
sults  of  it.  We  will  not  be  so  unjust  to  the  Society 
as  to  suppose  that  any  of  its  members  would  rely 
on  this  latter  plea,  and  shall  therefore  confine 
ourselves  to  a  brief  consideration  of  the  other. 

In  order  that  the  same  rules  of  interpretation 
should  be  considered  applicable  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  Society  and  to  that  of  the  United  States, 
we  must  attribute  to  the  former  a  solemnity  and 
importance  which  involve  a  palpable  absurdity. 
To  claim  for  it  the  verbal  accuracy  and  the  legal 
wariness  of  a  mere  contract  is  equally  at  war  with 
common  sense  and  the  facts  of  the  case  ;  and  even 
were  it  not  so,  the  party  to  a  bond  who  should 
attempt  to  escape  its  ethical  obligation  by  a  legal 
quibble  of  construction  would  be  put  in  Coventry 
by  all  honest  men.  In  point  of  fact,  the  Constitu 
tion  was  simply  the  minutes  of  an  agreement  among 
certain  gentlemen,  to  define  the  limits  within  which 
they  would  accept  trust  funds,  and  the  objects  for 
which  they  should  expend  them. 

But  if  we  accept  the  alternative  offered  by  the 
advocates  of  strict  construction,  we  shall  not  find 
that  their  case  is  strengthened.  Claiming  that 
where  the  meaning  of  an  instrument  is  doubtful, 
it  should  be  interpreted  according  to  the  contempo 
rary  understanding  of  its  framers,  they  argue  that 
it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  gentlemen  from 
the  Southern  States  would  have  united  to  form  a 


4  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

society  that  included  in  its  objects  any  discussion 
of  the  moral  duties  arising  from  the  institution  of 
Slavery.  Admitting  the  first  part  of  their  proposi 
tion,  we  deny  the  conclusion  they  seek  to  draw  from 
it.  They  are  guilty  of  a  glaring  anachronism  in 
assuming  the  same  opinions  and  prejudices  to  have 
existed  in  1825  which  are  undoubtedly  influential 
in  1858.  The  Anti-slavery  agitation  did  not  begin 
until  1831,  and  the  debates  in  the  Virginia  Conven 
tion  prove  conclusively  that  six  years  after  the  foun 
dation  of  they  Tract  Society,  the  leading  men  in  that 
State,  men  whose  minds  had  been  trained  and  whose 
characters  had  been  tempered  in  that  school  of  ac 
tion  and  experience  which  was  open  to  all  during 
the  heroic  period  of  our  history,  had  not  yet  suf 
fered  such  distortion  of  the  intellect  through  pas 
sion  and  such  deadening  of  the  conscience  through 
interest,  as  would  have  prevented  their  discussing 
either  the  moral  or  the  political  aspects  of  Slavery, 
and  precluded  them  from  uniting  in  any  effort  to 
make  the  relation  between  master  and  slave  less 
demoralizing  to  the  one  and  less  imbruting  to  the 
other. 

Again,  it  is  claimed  that  the  words  of  the  Consti 
tution  are  conclusive,  and  that  the  declaration  that 
the  publications  of  the  Society  shall  be  such  as  are 
"  satisfactory  to  all  Evangelical  Christians "  for 
bids  by  implication  the  issuing  of  any  tract  which 
could  possibly  offend  the  brethren  in  Slave  States. 
The  Society,  it  is  argued,  can  publish  only  on 
topics  about  which  all  Evangelical  Christians  are 
agreed,  and  must,  therefore,  avoid  everything  in 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY.  5 

which  the  question  of  politics  is  involved.  But 
what  are  the  facts  about  matters  other  than  Sla 
very  ?  Tracts  have  been  issued  and  circulated  in 
which  Dancing  is  condemned  as  sinful ;  are  all 
Evangelical  Christians  agreed  about  this?  On 
the  Temperance  question,  against  Catholicism,  — 
have  these  topics  never  entered  into  our  politics  ? 
The  simple  truth  is  that  Slavery  is  the  only  subject 
about  which  the  Publishing  Committee  have  felt 
Constitutional  scruples.  Till  tm$  question  arose, 
they  were  like  men  in  perfect  health,  never  sus 
pecting  that  they  had  any  constitution  at  "^rh;  but 
now,  like  hypochondriacs,  they  feel  it  in  every  pore, 
at  the  least  breath  froiiHhe  eastward.  \ 

If  a  strict  construction  orx^ie  words  "  aU  Evan-     \ 
gelical  Christians  "  be  insisteiP&n,  we  are  at  a  loss 
to  see  where  the  committee  could  drkw  the  dividing 
line  between  what  might  be  offensiveNand  what 
allowable.      The   Society  publish  tracts  in\whicn\ 
the  study  of  the  Scriptures  is  enforced  and \heir 
denial   to    the  laity  by  Romanists  assailed.     BHfc 
throughout  the  South  it  is  criminal  to  teach  a  slave\ 
to  read ;  throughout  the  South  no  book  could  be    \l 
distributed  among  the  servile  population  more  inp 
cendiary  than  the  Bible,  if  they  could  only^read 
it.     Will  not  our  Southern  brethren  take  alarm? 
The  Society  is  reduced  to  the  dilemma  of  either 
denying  that  the  African  has  a  soul  to  be  saved, 
or  of  consenting  to  the  terrible  mockery  of  assur 
ing  him  that  the  way  of  life  is  to  be  found  only  by 
searching  a  book  which  he  is  forbidden  to  open. 

If  we  carry  out  this  doctrine  of  strict  construe- 


6  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

tion  to  its  legitimate  results,  we  shall  find  that  it 
involves  a  logical  absurdity.  What  is  the  number 
of  men  whose  outraged  sensibilities  may  claim  the 
suppression  of  a  tract  ?  Is  the  taboo  of  a  thousand 
valid  ?  Of  a  hundred  ?  Of  ten  ?  Or  are  tracts  to 
be  distributed  only  to  those  who  will  find  their  doc 
trine  agreeable,  and  are  the  Society's  colporteurs  to 
be  instructed  that  a  Temperance  essay  is  the  proper 
thing  for  a  total-abstinent  infidel,  and  a  sermon  on 
the  Atonement  for  a  distilling  deacon  ?  If  the  aim 
of  the  Society  be  only  to  convert  men  from  sins 
they  have  no  mind  to,  and  to  convince  them  of  er 
rors  to  which  they  have  no  temptation,  they  might 
as  well  be  spending  their  money  to  persuade  school 
masters  that  two  and  two  make  four,  or  geometri 
cians  that  there  cannot  be  two  obtuse  angles  in  a 
triangle.  If  this  be  their  notion  of  the  way  in 
which  the  gospel  is  to  be  preached,  we  do  not  won 
der  that  they  have  found  it  necessary  to  print  a 
tract  upon  the  impropriety  of  sleeping  in  church. 

But  the  Society  are  concluded  by  their  own  ac 
tion  ;  for  in  1857  they  unanimously  adopted  the  fol 
lowing  resolution :  "  That  those  moral  duties  which 
grow  out  of  the  existence  of  Slavery,  as  well  as  those 
moral  evils  and  vices  which  it  is  known  to  promote 
and  which  are  condemned  in  Scripture,  and  so  much 
deplored  by  Evangelical  Christians,  undoubtedly 
do  fall  within  the  province  of  this  Society,  and 
can  and  ought  to  be  discussed  in  a  fraternal  and 
Christian  spirit."  The  Society  saw  clearly  that  it 
was  impossible  to  draw  a  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 
in  the  world  of  ethics,  to  divide  Duty  by  a  parallel 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY.  1 

of  latitude.  The  only  line  which  Christ  drew  is 
that  which  parts  the  sheep  from  the  goats,  that 
great  horizon-line  of  the  moral  nature  of  man,  which 
is  the  boundary  between  light  and  darkness.  The 
Society,  by  yielding  (as  they  have  done  in  1858)  to 
what  are  pleasantly  called  the  "  objections  "  of  the 
South  (objections  of  so  forcible  a  nature  that  we  are 
told  the  colporteurs  were  "forced  to  flee  ")  virtually 
exclude  the  black  man,  if  born  to  the  southward  of 
a  certain  arbitrary  line,  from  the  operation  of  God's 
providence,  and  thereby  do  as  great  a  wrong  to  the 
Creator  as  the  Episcopal  Church  did  to  the  artist 
when  without  public  protest  they  allowed  Ary 
Scheffer's  Christus  Consolator,  with  the  figure  of 
the  slave  left  out,  to  be  published  in  a  Prayer-Book. 
The  Society  is  not  asked  to  disseminate  Anti- 
slavery  doctrines,  but  simply  to  be  even-handed 
between  master  and  slave,  and,  since  they  have 
recommended  Sambo  and  Toney  to  be  obedient  to 
Mr.  Legree,  to  remind  him  in  turn  that  he  also  has 
duties  toward  the  bodies  and  souls  of  his  bondmen. 
But  we  are  told  that  the  time  has  not  yet  arrived, 
that  at  present  the  ears  of  our  Southern  brethren 
are  closed  against  all  appeals,  that  God  in  his  good 
time  will  turn  their  hearts,  and  that  then,  and  not 
till  then,  will  be  the  fitting  occasion  to  do  some 
thing  in  the  premises.  But  if  the  Society  is  to 
await  this  golden  opportunity  with  such  exemplary 
patience  in  one  case,  why  not  in  all  ?  If  it  is  to 
decline  any  attempt  at  converting  the  sinner  till 
after  God  has  converted  him,  will  there  be  any 
special  necessity  for  a  tract  society  at  all  ?  Will 
it  not  be  a  little  presumptuous,  as  well  as  superflu- 


8  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

ous,  to  undertake  the  doing  over  again  of  what  He 
has  already  done  ?  We  fear  that  the  studies  of 
Blackstone,  upon  which  the  gentlemen  who  argue 
thus  have  entered  in  order  to  fit  themselves  for  the 
legal  and  constitutional  argument  of  the  question, 
have  confused  their  minds,  and  that  they  are  mis 
led  by  some  fancied  analogy  between  a  tract  and 
an  action  of  trover,  and  conceive  that  the  one,  like 
the  other,  cannot  be  em  ployed  till  after  an  actual 
conversion  has  taken  place. 

The  resolutions  reported  by  the  Special  Commit 
tee  at  the  annual  meeting  of  1857,  drawn  up  with 
great  caution  and  with  a  sincere  desire  to  make 
whole  the  breach  in  the  Society,  have  had  the  usual 
fate  of  all  attempts  to  reconcile  incompatibilities 
by  compromise.  They  express  confidence  in  the 
Publishing  Committee,  and  at  the  same  time  im- 
pliedly  condemn  them  by  recommending  them  to 
do  precisely  what  they  had  all  along  scrupulously 
avoided  doing.  The  result  was  just  what  might 
have  been  expected.  Both  parties  among  the 
Northern  members  of  the  Society,  those  who  ap 
proved  the  former  action  of  the  Publishing  Com 
mittee  and  those  who  approved  the  new  policy  rec 
ommended  in  the  resolutions,  those  who  favored 
silence  and  those  who  favored  speech  on  the  sub 
ject  of  Slavery,  claimed  the  victory,  while  the 
Southern  brethren,  as  usual,  refused  to  be  satisfied 
with  anything  short  of  unconditional  submission. 
The  word  Compromise,  as  far  as  Slavery  is  con 
cerned,  has  always  been  of  fatal  augury.  The  con 
cessions  of  the  South  have  been  like  the  "  With  all 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY. 

my  worldly  goods  I  thee  endow"  of  a  bankrupt 
bridegroom,  who  thereby  generously  bestows  all  his 
debts  upon  his  wife,  and  as  a  small  return  for  his 
magnanimity  consents  to  accept  all  her  personal 
and  a  life  estate  in  all  her  real  property.  The 
South  is  willing  that  the  Tract  Society  should  ex 
pend  its  money  to  convince  the  slave  that  he  has  a 
soul  to  be  saved  so  far  as  he  is  obedient  to  his  mas 
ter,  but  not  to  persuade  the  master  that  he  has  a 
soul  to  undergo  a  very  different  process  so  far  as 
he  is  unmerciful  to  his  slave. 

We  Americans  are  very  fond  of  this  glue  of 
compromise.  Like  so  many  quack  cements,  it  is 
advertised  to  make  the  mended  parts  of  the  vessel 
stronger  than  those  which  have  never  been  broken, 
but,  like  them,  it  will  not  stand  hot  water,  —  and 
as  the  question  of  slavery  is  sure  to  plunge  all  who 
approach  it,  even  with  the  best  intentions,  into  that 
fatal  element,  the  patched-up  brotherhood,  which 
but  yesterday  was  warranted  to  be  better  than  new, 
falls  once  more  into  a  heap  of  incoherent  frag 
ments.  The  last  trial  of  the  virtues  of  the  Patent 
Redintegrator  by  the  Special  Committee  of  the 
Tract  Society  has  ended  like  all  the  rest,  and  as 
all  attempts  to  buy  peace  at  too  dear  a  rate  must 
end.  Peace  is  an  excellent  thing,  but  principle 
and  pluck  are  better ;  and  the  man  who  sacrifices 
them  to  gain  it  finds  at  last  that  he  has  crouched 
under  the  Caudine  yoke  to  purchase  only  a  con 
temptuous  toleration,  that  leaves  him  at  war  with 
his  own  self-respect  and  the  invincible  forces  of  his 
higher  nature. 


10  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

But  the  peace  which  Christ  promised  to  his  fol 
lowers  was  not  of  this  world  ;  the  good  gift  he 
brought  them  was  not  peace,  but  a  sword.  It  was 
no  sword  of  territorial  conquest,  but  that  flaming 
blade  of  conscience  and  self  -  conviction  which 
lightened  between  our  first  parents  and  their  lost 
Eden,  —  that  sword  of  the  Spirit  that  searcheth 
all  things,  —  which  severs  one  by  one  the  ties  of 
passion,  of  interest,  of  self-pride,  that  bind  the 
soul  to  earth,  —  whose  implacable  edge  may  divide 
a  man  from  family,  from  friends,  from  whatever 
is  nearest  and  dearest,  —  and  which  hovers  before 
him  like  the  air-drawn  dagger  of  Macbeth,  beckon 
ing  him,  not  to  crime,  but  to  the  legitimate  royal 
ties  of  self-denial  and  self-sacrifice,  to  the  freedom 
which  is  won  only  by  surrender  of  the  will.  Chris 
tianity  has  never  been  concession,  never  peace ;  it 
is  continual  aggression  ;  one  province  of  wrong 
conquered,  its  pioneers  are  already  in  the  heart 
of  another.  The  mile-stones  of  its  onward  march 
down  the  ages  have  not  been  monuments  of  ma 
terial  power,  but  the  blackened  stakes  of  martyrs, 
trophies  of  individual  fidelity  to  conviction.  For 
it  is  the  only  religion  which  is  superior  to  all  en 
dowment,  to  all  authority,  —  which  has  a  bishopric 
and  a  cathedral  wherever  a  single  human  soul  has 
surrendered  itself  to  God.  That  very  spirit  of 
doubt,  inquiry,  and  fanaticism  for  private  judgment, 
with  which  Romanists  reproach  Protestantism,  is 
its  stamp  and  token  of  authenticity,  —  the  seal  of 
Christ,  and  not  of  the  Fisherman. 

We  do  not  wonder  at  the   division  which   has 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY.         11 

taken  place  in  the  Tract  Society,  nor  do  we  regret 
it.  The  ideal  life  of  a  Christian  is  possible  to  very 
few,  but  we  naturally  look  for  a  nearer  approach 
to  it  in  those  who  associate  together  to  disseminate 
the  doctrines  which  they  believe  to  be  its  formative 
essentials,  and  there  is  nothing  which  the  enemies 
of  religion  seize  on  so  gladly  as  any  inconsistency 
between  the  conduct  and  the  professions  of  such 
persons.  Though  utterly  indifferent  to  the  wrongs 
of  the  slave,  the  scoffer  would  not  fail  to  remark 
upon  the  hollowness  of  a  Christianity  which  was 
horror-stricken  at  a  dance  or  a  Sunday  drive,  while 
it  was  blandly  silent  about  the  separation  of  fami 
lies,  the  putting  asunder  whom  God  had  joined,  the 
selling  Christian  girls  for  Christian  harems,  and  the 
thousand  horrors  of  a  system  which  can  lessen  the 
agonies  it  inflicts  only  by  debasing  the  minds  and 
souls  of  the  race  on  which  it  inflicts  them.  Is  your 
Christianity,  then,  he  would  say,  a  respecter  of 
persons,  and  does  it  condone  the  sin  because  the 
sinner  can  contribute  to  your  coffers  ?  Was  there 
ever  a  simony  like  this,  —  that  does  not  sell,  but 
withholds,  the  gift  of  God  for  a  price  ? 

The  world  naturally  holds  the  Society  to  a 
stricter  accountability  than  it  would  insist  upon  in 
ordinary  cases.  Were  they  only  a  club  of  gentle 
men  associated  for  their  own  amusement,  it  would 
be  very  natural  and  proper  that  they  should  exclude 
all  questions  which  would  introduce  controversy, 
and  that,  however  individually  interested  in  certain 
reforms,  they  should  not  force  them  upon  others 
who  would  consider  them  a  bore.  But  a  society  of 


12  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

professing  Christians,  united  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  carrying  both  the  theory  and  the  practice 
of  the  New  Testament  into  every  household  in  the 
land,  has  voluntarily  subjected  itself  to  a  graver 
responsibility,  and  renounced  all  title  to  fall  back 
upon  any  reserved  right  of  personal  comfort  or 
convenience. 

We  say,  then,  that  we  are  glad  to  see  this  divi 
sion  in  the  Tract  Society ;  not  glad  because  of  the 
division,  but  because  it  has  sprung  from  an  earnest 
effort  to  relieve  the  Society  of  a  reproach  which 
was  not  only  impairing  its  usefulness,  but  doing 
an  injury  to  the  cause  of  truth  and  sincerity  every 
where.  We  have  no  desire  to  impugn  the  motives 
of  those  who  consider  themselves  conservative 
members  of  the  Society ;  we  believe  them  to  be 
honest  in  their  convictions,  or  their  want  of  them  ; 
but  we  think  they  have  mistaken  notions  as  to  what 
conservatism  is,  and  that  they  are  wrong  in  sup 
posing  it  to  consist  in  refusing  to  wipe  away  the 
film  on  their  spectacle-glasses  which  prevents  their 
seeing  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  or  in  conserv 
ing  reverently  the  barnacles  on  their  ship's  bottom 
and  the  dry-rot  in  its  knees.  We  yield  to  none  of 
them  in  reverence  for  the  Past ;  it  is  there  only 
that  the  imagination  can  find  repose  and  seclu 
sion  ;  there  dwells  that  silent  majority  whose  expe 
rience  guides  our  action  and  whose  wisdom  shapes 
our  thought  in  spite  of  ourselves  ;  —  but  it  is  not 
length  of  days  that  can  make  evil  reverend,  nor 
persistence  in  inconsistency  that  can  give  it  the 
power  or  the  claim  of  orderly  precedent.  Wrong, 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY.         13 

though  its  title-deeds  go  back  to  the  days  of  Sodom, 
is  by  nature  a  thing  of  yesterday,  —  while  the 
right,  of  which  we  became  conscious  but  an  hour 
ago,  is  more  ancient  than  the  stars,  and  of  the 
essence  of  Heaven.  If  it  were  proposed  to  estab 
lish  Slavery  to-inorrow,  should  we  have  more 
patience  with  its  patriarchal  argument  than  with 
the  parallel  claim  of  Mormonism  ?  That  Slavery 
is  old  is  but  its  greater  condemnation ;  that  we 
have  tolerated  it  so  long,  the  strongest  plea  for  our 
doing  so  no  longer.  There  is  one  institution  to 
which  we  owe  our  first  allegiance,  one  that  is  more 
sacred  and  venerable  than  any  other,  —  the  soul 
and  conscience  of  Man. 

What  claim  has  Slavery  to  immunity  from  dis 
cussion?  We  are  told  that  discussion  is  danger 
ous.  Dangerous  to  what  ?  Truth  invites  it,  courts 
the  point  of  the  Ithuriel-spear,  whose  touch  can 
but  reveal  more  clearly  the  grace  and  grandeur 
of  her  angelic  proportions.  The  advocates  of 
Slavery  have  taken  refuge  in  the  last  covert  of 
desperate  sophism,  and  affirm  that  their  institution 
is  of  Divine  ordination,  that  its  bases  are  laid  in 
the  nature  of  man.  Is  anything,  then,  of  God's 
contriving  endangered  by  inquiry?  Was  it  the 
system  of  the  universe,  or  the  monks,  that  trembled 
at  the  telescope  of  Galileo  ?  Did  the  circulation 
of  the  firmament  stop  in  terror  because  Newton 
laid  his  daring  finger  on  its  pulse  ?  But  it  is  idle 
to  discuss  a  proposition  so  monstrous.  There  is 
no  right  of  sanctuary  for  a  crime  against  humanity, 
and  they  who  drag  an  unclean  thing  to  the  horns 


14  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  the  altar  bring  it  to  vengeance,  and  not  to 
safety. 

Even  granting  that  Slavery  were  all  that  its 
apologists  assume  it  to  be,  and  that  the  relation  of 
master  and  slave  were  of  God's  appointing,  would 
not  its  abuses  be  just  the  thing  which  it  was  the 
duty  of  Christian  men  to  protest  against,  and,  as 
far  as  might  be,  to  root  out?  Would  our  courts 
feel  themselves  debarred  from  interfering  to  rescue 
a  daughter  from  a  parent  who  wished  to  make  mer 
chandise  of  her  purity,  or  a  wife  from  a  husband 
who  was  brutal  to  her,  by  the  plea  that  parental 
authority  and  marriage  were  of  Divine  ordinance  ? 
Would  a  police-justice  discharge  a  drunkard  who 
pleaded  the  patriarchal  precedent  of  Noah?  or 
would  he  not  rather  give  him  another  month  in  the 
House  of  Correction  for  his  impudence  ? 

The  Anti-slavery  question  is  not  one  which  the 
Tract  Society  can  exclude  by  triumphant  majori 
ties,  nor  put  to  shame  by  a  comparison  of  respecta 
bilities.  Mixed  though  it  has  been  with  politics,  it 
is  in  no  sense  political,  and  springing  naturally 
from  the  principles  of  that  religion  which  traces  its 
human  pedigree  to  a  manger,  and  whose  first  apos 
tles  were  twelve  poor  men  against  the  whole  world, 
it  can  dispense  with  numbers  and  earthly  respect. 
The  clergyman  may  ignore  it  in  the  pulpit,  but  it 
confronts  him  in  his  study  ;  the  church-member, 
who  has  suppressed  it  in  parish-meeting,  opens  it 
with  the  pages  of  his  Testament ;  the  merchant, 
who  has  shut  it  oiit  of  his  house  and  his  heart, 
finds  it  lying  in  wait  for  him,  a  gaunt  fugitive,  in 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY.         15 

the  hold  of  his  ship ;  the  lawyer,  who  has  declared 
that  it  is  no  concern  of  his,  finds  it  thrust  upon 
him  in  the  brief  of  the  slave-hunter  ;  the  historian, 
who  had  cautiously  evaded  it,  stumbles  over  it  at 
Bunker  Hill.  And  why  ?  Because  it  is  not  politi 
cal,  but  moral,  —  because  it  is  not  local,  but  na 
tional,  —  because  it  is  not  a  test  of  party,  but  of 
individual  honesty  and  honor.  The  wrong  which 
we  allow  our  nation  to  perpetrate  we  cannot  local 
ize,  if  we  would  ;  we  cannot  hem  it  within  the  lim 
its  of  Washington  or  Kansas ;  sooner  or  later,  it 
will  force  itself  into  the  conscience  and  sit  by  the 
hearthstone  of  every  citizen. 

It  is  not  partisanship,  it  is  not  fanaticism,  that 
has  forced  this  matter  of  Anti-slavery  upon  the 
American  people ;  it  is  the  spirit  of  Christianity, 
which  appeals  from  prejudices  and  predilections  to 
the  moral  consciousness  of  the  individual  man  ;  that 
spirit  elastic  as  air,  penetrative  as  heat,  invulnerable 
as  sunshine,  against  which  creed  after  creed  and 
institution  after  institution  have  measured  their 
strength  and  been  confounded  ;  that  restless  spirit 
which  refuses  to  crystallize  in  any  sect  or  form,  but 
persists,  a  Divinely  commissioned  radical  and  re- 
constructor,  in  trying  every  generation  with  a  new 
dilemma  between  ease  and  interest  on  the  one 
hand,  and  duty  011  the  other.  Shall  it  be  said  that 
its  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world  ?  In  one  sense, 
and  that  the  highest,  it  certainly  is  not ;  but  just 
as  certainly  Christ  never  intended  those  words  to 
be  used  as  a  subterfuge  by  which  to  escape  our 
responsibilities  in  the  life  of  business  and  politics. 


16  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Let  the  cross,  the  sword,  and  the  arena  answer, 
whether  the  world,  that  then  was,  so  understood  its 
first  preachers  and  apostles.  Caesar  and  Flamen 
both  instinctively  dreaded  it,  not  because  it  aimed 
at  riches  or  power,  but  because  it  strove  to  conquer 
that  other  world  in  the  moral  nature  of  mankind, 
where  it  could  establish  a  throne  against  which 
wealth  and  force  would  be  weak  and  contemptible. 
No  human  device  has  ever  prevailed  against  it,  no 
array  of  majorities  or  respectabilities ;  but  neither 
Ca3sar  nor  Flamen  ever  conceived  a  scheme  so  cun 
ningly  adapted  to  neutralize  its  power  as  that 
graceful  compromise  which  accepts  it  with  the  lip 
and  denies  it  in  the  life,  which  marries  it  at  the 
altar  and  divorces  it  at  the  church-door. 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER 

1860. 

WHILE  all  of  us  have  been  watching,  with  that 
admiring  sympathy  which  never  fails  to  wait  on 
courage  and  magnanimity,  the  career  of  the  new 
Timoleon  in  Sicily ;  while  we  have  been  reckoning, 
with  an  interest  scarcely  less  than  in  some  affair 
of  personal  concern,  the  chances  and  changes  that 
bear  with  furtherance  or  hindrance  upon  the  for 
tune  of  united  Italy,  we  are  approaching,  with  a 
quietness  and  composure  which  more  than  any 
thing  else  mark  the  essential  difference  between 
our  own  form  of  democracy  and  any  other  yet 
known  in  history,  a  crisis  in  our  domestic  policy 
more  momentous  than  any  that  has  arisen  since  we 
became  a  nation.  Indeed,  considering  the  vital 
consequences  for  good  or  evil  that  will  follow  from 
the  popular  decision  in  November,  we  might  be 
tempted  to  regard  the  remarkable  moderation 
which  has  thus  far  characterized  the  Presidential 
canvass  as  a  guilty  indifference  to  the  duty  implied 
in  the  privilege  of  suffrage,  or  a  stolid  unconscious 
ness  of  the  result  which  may  depend  upon  its  exer 
cise  in  this  particular  election,  did  we  not  believe 
that  it  arose  chiefly  from  the  general  persuasion 
that  the  success  of  the  Republican  party  was  a  fore 
gone  conclusion. 


18  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

In  a  society  like  ours,  where  every  man  may 
transmute  his  private  thought  into  history  and  des 
tiny  by  dropping  it  into  the  ballot-box,  a  peculiar 
responsibility  rests  upon  the  individual.  Nothing 
can  absolve  us  from  doing  our  best  to  look  at  all 
public  questions  as  citizens,  and  therefore  in  some 
sort  as  administrators  and  rulers.  For  though 
during  its  term  of  office  the  government  be  practi 
cally  as  independent  of  the  popular  will  as  that  of 
Kussia,  yet  every  fourth  year  the  people  are  called 
upon  to  pronounce  upon  the  conduct  of  their  af 
fairs.  Theoretically,  at  least,  to  give  democracy 
any  standing-ground  for  an  argument  with  despot 
ism  or  oligarchy,  a  majority  of  the  men  composing 
it  should  be  statesmen  and  thinkers.  It  is  a  prov 
erb,  that  to  turn  a  radical  into  a  conservative  there 
needs  only  to  put  him  into  office,  because  then  the 
license  of  speculation  or  sentiment  is  limited  by 
a  sense  of  responsibility  ;  then  for  the  first  time 
he  becomes  capable  of  that  comparative  view 
which  sees  principles  and  measures,  not  in  the  nar 
row  abstract,  but  in  the  full  breadth  of  their  rela 
tions  to  each  other  and  to  political  consequences. 
The  theory  of  democracy  presupposes  something  of 
these  results  of  official  position  in  the  individual 
voter,  since  in  exercising  his  right  he  becomes  for 
the  moment  an  integral  part  of  the  governing 
power. 

How  very  far  practice  is  from  any  likeness  to 
theory,  a  week's  experience  of  our  politics  suf 
fices  to  convince  us.  The  very  government  it 
self  seems  an  organized  scramble,  and  Congress 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          19 

a  boy's  debating-club,  with  the  disadvantage  of 
being  reported.  As  our  party-creeds  are  com 
monly  represented  less  by  ideas  than  by  persons 
(who  are  assumed,  without  too  close  a  scrutiny, 
to  be  the  exponents  of  certain  ideas)  our  politics 
become  personal  and  narrow  to  a  degree  never 
paralleled,  unless  in  ancient  Athens  or  mediaeval 
Florence.  Our  Congress  debates  and  our  news 
papers  discuss,  sometimes  for  day  after  day,  not 
questions  of  national  interest,  not  what  is  wise 
and  right,  but  what  the  Honorable  Lafayette 
Skreemer  said  on  the  stump,  or  bad  whiskey  said 
for  him,  half  a  dozen  years  ago.  If  that  person 
age,  outraged  in  all  the  finer  sensibilities  of  our 
common  nature,  by  failing  to  get  the  contract 
for  supplying  the  District  Court-House  at  Skree- 
meropolisville  City  with  revolvers,  was  led  to  dis 
parage  the  union  of  these  States,  it  is  seized  on 
as  proof  conclusive  that  the  party  to  which  he 
belongs  are  so  many  Catcdines,  —  for  Congress 
is  unanimous  only  in  misspelling  the  name  of  that 
oft-invoked  conspirator.  The  next  Presidential 
Election  looms  always  in  advance,  so  that  we 
seem  never  to  have  an  actual  Chief  Magistrate,  but 
a  prospective  one,  looking  to  the  chances  of  re 
election,  and  mingling  in  all  the  dirty  intrigues 
of  provincial  politics  with  an  unhappy  talent  for 
making  them  dirtier.  The  cheating  mirage  of  the 
White  House  lures  our  public  men  away  from 
present  duties  and  obligations;  and  if  matters 
go  on  as  they  have  gone,  we  shall  need  a  Com 
mittee  of  Congress  to  count  the  spoons  in  the 


20  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

public  plate-closet,  whenever  a  President  goes 
out  of  office,  —  with  a  policeman  to  watch  every 
member  of  the  Committee.  We  are  kept  normally 
in  that  most  unprofitable  of  predicaments,  a  state 
of  transition,  and  politicians  measure  their  words 
and  deeds  by  a  standard  of  immediate  and  tem 
porary  expediency,  —  an  expediency  not  as  con 
cerning  the  nation,  but  which,  if  more  than  merely 
personal,  is  no  wider  than  the  interests  of  party. 

Is  all  this  a  result  of  the  failure  of  demo 
cratic  institutions?  Rather  of  the  fact  that  those 
institutions  have  never  yet  had  a  fair  trial,  and 
that  for  the  last  thirty  years  an  abnormal  ele 
ment  has  been  acting  adversely  with  continually 
increasing  strength.  Whatever  be  the  effect  of 
slavery  upon  the  States  where  it  exists,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  its  moral  influence  upon  the  North 
has  been  most  disastrous.  It  has  compelled  our 
politicians  into  that  first  fatal  compromise  with 
their  moral  instincts  and  hereditary  principles 
which  makes  all  consequent  ones  easy ;  it  has  accus 
tomed  us  to  makeshifts  instead  of  statesmanship, 
to  subterfuge  instead  of  policy,  to  party-platforms 
for  opinions,  and  to  a  defiance  of  the  public  sen 
timent  of  the  civilized  world  for  patriotism.  We 
have  been  asked  to  admit,  first,  that  it  was  a  neces 
sary  evil ;  then  that  it  was  a  good  both  to  master 
and  slave  ;  then  that  it  was  the  corner-stone  of  free 
institutions ;  then  that  it  was  a  system  divinely 
instituted  under  the  Old  Law  and  sanctioned 
under  the  New.  With  a  representation,  three 
fifths  of  it  based  on  the  assumption  that  negroes 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          21 

are  men,  the  South  turns  upon  us  and  insists  on 
our  acknowledging  that  they  are  things.  After 
compelling  her  Northern  allies  to  pronounce  the 
"  free  and  equal "  clause  of  the  preamble  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  (because  it  stood 
in  the  way  of  enslaving  men)  a  manifest  absurd 
ity,  she  has  declared,  through  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  that  negroes  are  not  men 
in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word.  To  eat 
dirt  is  bad  enough,  but  to  find  that  we  have  eaten 
more  than  was  necessary  may  chance  to  give  us 
an  indigestion.  The  slaveholding  interest  has 
gone  on  step  by  step,  forcing  concession  after 
concession,  till  it  needs  but  little  to  secure  it 
forever  in  the  political  supremacy  of  the  country. 
Yield  to  its  latest  demand,  —  let  it  mould  the  evil 
destiny  of  the  Territories,  —  and  the  thing  is  done 
past  recall.  The  next  Presidential  Election  is  to 
say  Yes  or  No. 

But  we  should  not  regard  the  mere  question 
of  political  preponderancy  as  of  vital  consequence, 
did  it  not  involve  a  continually  increasing  moral 
degradation  on  the  part  of  the  Non-slaveholding 
States,  —  for  Free  States  they  could  not  be  called 
much  longer.  Sordid  and  materialistic  views  of 
the  true  value  and  objects  of  society  and  govern 
ment  are  professed  more  and  more  openly  by  the 
leaders  of  popular  outcry,  —  for  it  cannot  be  called 
public  opinion.  That  side  of  human  nature  which 
it  has  been  the  object  of  all  lawgivers  and  moralists 
to  repress  and  subjugate  is  flattered  and  caressed ; 
whatever  is  profitable  is  right;  and  already  the 


22  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

slave-trade,  as  yielding  a  greater  return  on  the 
capital  invested  than  any  other  traffic,  is  lauded 
as  the  highest  achievement  of  human  reason  and 
justice.  Mr.  Hammond  has  proclaimed  the  ac 
cession  of  King  Cotton,  but  he  seems  to  have 
forgotten  that  history  is  not  without  examples  of 
kings  who  have  lost  their  crowns  through  the 
folly  and  false  security  of  their  ministers.  It  is 
quite  true  that  there  is  a  large  class  of  reasoners 
who  would  weigh  all  questions  of  right  and  wrong 
in  the  balance  of  trade  ;  but  we  cannot  bring  our 
selves  to  believe  that  it  is  a  wise  political  econ 
omy  which  makes  cotton  by  unmaking  men,  or  a 
far-seeing  statesmanship  which  looks  on  an  im 
mediate  money-profit  as  a  safe  equivalent  for  a 
beggared  public  sentiment.  We  think  Mr.  Ham 
mond  even  a  little  premature  in  proclaiming  the  new 
Pretender.  The  election  of  November  may  prove 
a  Culloden.  Whatever  its  result,  it  is  to  settle, 
for  many  years  to  come,  the  question  whether  the 
American  idea  is  to  govern  this  continent,  whether 
the  Occidental  or  the  Oriental  theory  of  society 
is  to  mould  our  future,  whether  we  are  to  recede 
from  principles  which  eighteen  Christian  centuries 
have  been  slowly  establishing  at  the  cost  of  so 
many  saintly  lives  at  the  stake  and  so  many  heroic 
ones  on  the  scaffold  and  the  battle-field,  in  favor 
of  some  fancied  assimilation  to  the  household  ar 
rangements  of  Abraham,  of  which  all  that  can 
be  said  with  certainty  is  that  they  did  not  add 
to  his  domestic  happiness. 

We  believe  that  this  election  is  a  turning-point 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          23 

in  our  history ;  for,  although  there  are  four  can 
didates,  there  are  really,  as  everybody  knows,  but 
two  parties,  and  a  single  question  that  divides 
them.  The  supporters  of  Messrs.  Bell  and  Ever 
ett  have  adopted  as  their  platform  the  Constitu 
tion,  the  Union,  and  the  enforcement  of  the  Laws. 
This  may  be  very  convenient,  but  it  is  surely  not 
very  explicit.  The  cardinal  question  on  which  the 
whole  policy  of  the  country  is  to  turn  —  a  ques 
tion,  too,  which  this  very  election  must  decide  in 
one  way  or  the  other  —  is  the  interpretation  to 
be  put  upon  certain  clauses  of  the  Constitution. 
All  the  other  parties  equally  assert  their  loyalty 
to  that  instrument.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  the  fashion. 
The  removers  of  all  the  ancient  landmarks  of  our 
policy,  the  violators  of  thrice-pledged  faith,  the 
planners  of  new  treachery  to  established  compro 
mise,  all  take  refuge  in  the  Constitution,  — 

"  Like  thieves  that  in  a  hemp-plot  lie, 
Secure  against  the  hue  and  cry." 

In  the  same  way  the  first  Bonaparte  renewed  his 
profession  of  faith  in  the  Eevolution  at  every  con 
venient  opportunity ;  and  the  second  follows  the 
precedent  of  his  uncle,  though  the  uninitiated 
fail  to  see  any  logical  sequence  from  1789  to  1815 
or  1860.  If  Mr.  Bell  loves  the  Constitution,  Mr. 
Breckinridge  is  equally  fond ;  that  Egeria  of  our 
statesmen  could  be  "happy  with  either,  were 
t'  other  dear  charmer  away."  Mr.  Douglas  con 
fides  the  secret  of  his  passion  to  the  unloqua- 
cious  clams  of  Rhode  Island,  and  the  chief  com 
plaint  made  against  Mr.  Lincoln  by  his  opponents 
is  that  he  is  too  Constitutional. 


24  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Meanwhile,  the  only  point  in  which  voters  are 
interested  is,  What  do  they  mean  by  the  Constitu 
tion  ?  Mr.  Breckinridge  means  the  superiority  of 
a  certain  exceptional  species  of  property  over  all 
others ;  nay,  over  man  himself.  Mr.  Douglas,  with  a 
different  formula  for  expressing  it,  means  practically 
the  same  thing.  Both  of  them  mean  that  Labor 
has  no  rights  which  Capital  is  bound  to  respect,  — 
that  there  is  no  higher  law  than  human  interest  and 
cupidity.  Both  of  them  represent  not  merely  the 
narrow  principles  of  a  section,  but  the  still  nar 
rower  and  more  selfish  ones  of  a  caste.  Both  of 
them,  to  be  sure,  have  convenient  phrases  to  be  jug 
gled  with  before  election,  and  which  mean  one  thing 
or  another,  or  neither  one  thing  nor  another,  as  a 
particular  exigency  may  seem  to  require :  but  since 
both  claim  the  regular  Democratic  nomination,  we 
have  little  difficulty  in  divining  what  their  course 
would  be  after  the  fourth  of  March,  if  they  should 
chance  to  be  elected.  We  know  too  well  what 
regular  Democracy  is,  to  like  either  of  the  two  faces 
which  each  shows  by  turns  under  the  same  hood. 
Everybody  remembers  Baron  Grimm's  story  of  the 
Parisian  showman,  who  in  1789  exhibited  the  royal 
Bengal  tiger  under  the  new  character  of  national, 
as  more  in  harmony  with  the  changed  order  of 
things.  Could  the  animal  have  lived  till  1848,  he 
would  probably  have  found  himself  offered  to  the 
discriminating  public  as  the  democratic  and  social 
ornament  of  the  jungle.  The  Pro-slavery  party  of 
this  country  seeks  the  popular  favor  under  even 
more  frequent  and  incongruous  aliases :  it  is  now 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          25 

national,  now  conservative,  now  constitutional; 
here  it  represents  Squatter-Sovereignty,  and  there 
the  power  of  Congress  over  the  Territories  ;  but,  un 
der  whatever  name,  its  nature  remains  unchanged, 
and  its  instincts  are  none  the  less  predatory  and 
destructive. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  position  is  set  forth  with  sufficient 
precision  in  the  platform  adopted  by  the  Chicago 
Convention  ;  but  what  are  we  to  make  of  Messrs. 
Bell  and  Everett  ?  Heirs  of  the  stock  in  trade  of 
two  defunct  parties,  the  Whig  and  Know-Noth 
ing,  do  they  hope  to  resuscitate  them  ?  or  are 
they  only  like  the  inconsolable  widows  of  Pere  la 
Chaise,  who,  with  an  eye  to  former  customers,  make 
use  of  the  late  Andsoforth's  gravestone  to  adver 
tise  that  they  still  carry  on  the  business  at  the  old 
stand?  Mr.  Everett,  in  his  letter  accepting  the 
nomination,  gave  us  only  a  string  of  reasons  why  he 
should  not  have  accepted  it  at  all  ;  and  Mr.  Bell 
preserves  a  silence  singularly  at  variance  with  his 
patronymic.  The  only  public  demonstration  of 
principle  that  we  have  seen  is  an  emblematic  bell 
drawn  upon  a  wagon  by  a  single  horse,  with  a  man 
to  lead  him,  and  a  boy  to  make  a  nuisance  of  the 
tinkling  symbol  as  it  moves  along.  Are  all  the 
figures  in  this  melancholy  procession  equally  em 
blematic  ?  If  so,  which  of  the  two  candidates  is 
typified  in  the  unfortunate  who  leads  the  horse  ?  — 
for  we  believe  the  only  hope  of  the  party  is  to  get  one 
of  them  elected  by  some  hocus-pocus  in  the  House  of 
Representatives.  The  little  boy,  we  suppose,  is  in 
tended  to  represent  the  party,  which  promises  to  be 


26  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

so  conveniently  small  that  there  will  be  an  office  for 
every  member  of  it,  if  its  candidate  should  win.  Did 
not  the  bell  convey  a  plain  allusion  to  the  leading 
name  on  the  ticket,  we  should  conceive  it  an  excel 
lent  type  of  the  hollowness  of  those  fears  for  the 
safety  of  the  Union,  in  case  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  elec 
tion,  whose  changes  are  so  loudly  rung,  —  its  noise 
having  once  or  twice  given  rise  to  false  alarms  of 
fire,  till  people  found  out  what  it  really  was.  What 
ever  profound  moral  it  be  intended  to  convey,  we 
find  in  it  a  similitude  that  is  not  without  signifi 
cance  as  regards  the  professed  creed  of  the  party. 
The  industrious  youth  who  operates  upon  it  has 
evidently  some  notion  of  the  measured  and  regular 
motion  that  befits  the  tongues  of  well-disciplined 
and  conservative  bells.  He  does  his  best  to  make 
theory  and  practice  coincide ;  but  with  every  jolt 
on  the  road  an  involuntary  variation  is  produced, 
and  the  sonorous  pulsation  becomes  rapid  or  slow 
accordingly.  We  have  observed  that  the  Consti 
tution  was  liable  to  similar  derangements,  and  we 
very  much  doubt  whether  Mr.  Bell  himself  (since, 
after  all,  the  Constitution  would  practically  be 
nothing  else  than  his  interpretation  of  it)  would 
keep  the  same  measured'  tones  that  are  so  easy  on 
the  smooth  path  of  candidacy,  when  it  came  to  con 
ducting  the  car  of  State  over  some  of  the  rough 
places  in  the  highway  of  Manifest  Destiny,  and 
some  of  those  passages  in  our  politics  which,  after 
the  fashion  of  new  countries,  are  rather  corduroy 
in  character. 

But,  fortunately,  we  are  not  left  wholly  in  the 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          27 

dark  as  to  the  aims  of  the  self-styled  Constitutional 
party.  One  of  its  most  distinguished  members, 
Governor  Hunt  of  New  York,  has  given  us  to  un 
derstand  that  its  prime  object  is  the  defeat  at  all 
hazards  of  the  Republican  candidate.  To  achieve 
so  desirable  an  end,  its  leaders  are  ready  to  coa 
lesce,  here  with  the  Douglas,  and  there  with  the 
Breckinridge  faction  of  that  very  Democratic  party 
of  whose  violations  of  the  Constitution,  corruption, 
and  dangerous  limberness  of  principle  they  have 
been  the  lifelong  denouncers.  In  point  of  fact, 
then,  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  we  have  only  two 
parties  in  the  field  :  those  who  favor  the  extension 
of  slavery,  and  those  who  oppose  it,  —  in  other 
words,  a  Destructive  and  a  Conservative  party. 

We  know  very  well  that  the  partisans  of  Mr. 
Bell,  Mr.  Douglas,  and  Mr.  Breckinridge  all  equally 
claim  the  title  of  conservative :  and  the  fact  is  a 
very  curious  one,  well  worthy  the  consideration  of 
those  foreign  critics  who  argue  that  the  inevitable 
tendency  of  democracy  is  to  compel  larger  and 
larger  concessions  to  a  certain  assumed  communis 
tic  propensity  and  hostility  to  the  rights  of  property 
on  the  part  of  the  working  classes.  But  the  truth 
is,  that  revolutionary  ideas  are  promoted,  not  by 
any  unthinking  hostility  to  the  rights  of  property, 
but  by  a  well-founded  jealousy  of  its  usurpations ; 
and  it  is  Privilege,  and  not  Property,  that  is  per 
plexed  with  fear  of  change.  The  conservative  ef 
fect  of  ownership  operates  with  as  much  force  on 
the  man  with  a  hundred  dollars  in  an  old  stocking 
as  on  his  neighbor  with  a  million  in  the  funds. 


28  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

During  the  Roman  Revolution  of  '48,  the  beggars 
who  had  funded  their  gains  were  among  the  stanch- 
est  reactionaries,  and  left  Rome  with  the  nobility. 
No  question  of  the  abstract  right  of  property  has 
ever  entered  directly  into  our  politics,  or  ever  will, 
— the  point  at  issue  being,  whether  a  certain  excep 
tional  kind  of  property,  already  privileged  beyond 
all  others,  shall  be  entitled  to  still  further  privi 
leges  at  the  expense  of  every  other  kind.  The  ex 
tension  of  slavery  over  new  territory  means  just 
this,  —  that  this  one  kind  of  property,  not  recog 
nized  as  such  by  the  Constitution,  or  it  would  never 
have  been  allowed  to  enter  into  the  basis  of  repre 
sentation,  shall  control  the  foreign  and  domestic 
policy  of  the  Republic. 

A  great  deal  is  said,  to  be  sure,  about  the  rights 
of  the  South;  but  has  any  such  right  been  in 
fringed  ?  When  a  man  invests  money  in  any 
species  of  property,  he  assumes  the  risks  to  which 
it  is  liable.  If  he  buy  a  house,  it  may  be  burned ; 
if  a  ship,  it  may  be  wrecked  ;  if  a  horse  or  an  ox, 
it  may  die.  Now  the  disadvantage  of  the  Southern 
kind  of  property  is  —  how  shall  we  say  it  so  as  not 
to  violate  our  Constitutional  obligations  ?  —  that  it 
is  exceptional.  When  it  leaves  Virginia,  it  is  a 
thing ;  when  it  arrives  in  Boston,  it  becomes  a  man, 
speaks  human  language,  appeals  to  the  justice  of 
the  same  God  whom  we  all  acknowledge,  weeps  at 
the  memory  of  wife  and  children  left  behind,  —  in 
short,  hath  the  same  organs  and  dimensions  that 
a  Christian  hath,  and  is  not  distinguishable  from 
ordinary  Christians,  except,  perhaps,  by  a  simpler 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          29 

and  more  earnest  faith.  There  are  people  at  the 
North  who  believe  that,  beside  meum  and  tuum, 
there  is  also  such  a  thing  as  suum^  —  who  are  old- 
fashioned  enough,  or  weak  enough,  to  have  their 
feelings  touched  by  these  things,  to  think  that  hu 
man  nature  is  older  and  more  sacred  than  any  claim 
of  property  whatever,  and  that  it  has  rights  at  least 
as  much  to  be  respected  as  any  hypothetical  one  of 
our  Southern  brethren.  This,  no  doubt,  makes  it 
harder  to  recover  a  fugitive  chattel ;  but  the  exist 
ence  of  human  nature  in  a  man  here  and  there  is 
surely  one  of  those  accidents  to  be  counted  on  at 
least  as  often  as  fire,  shipwreck,  or  the  cattle-dis 
ease  ;  and  the  man  who  chooses  to  put  his  money 
into  these  images  of  his  Maker  cut  in  ebony  should 
be  content  to  take  the  incident  risks  along  with  the 
advantages.  We  should  be  very  sorry  to  deem  this 
risk  capable  of  diminution ;  for  we  think  that  the 
claims  of  a  common  manhood  upon  us  should  be  at 
least  as  strong  as  those  of  Freemasonry,  and  that 
those  whom  the  law  of  man  turns  away  should  find 
in  the  larger  charity  of  the  law  of  God  and  Nature 
a  readier  welcome  and  surer  sanctuary.  We  shall 
continue  to  think  the  negro  a  man,  and  on  South 
ern  evidence,  too,  so  long  as  he  is  counted  in  the 
population  represented  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  — 
for  three  fifths  of  perfect  manhood  would  be  a  high 
average  even  among  white  men ;  so  long  as  he  is 
hanged  or  worse,  as  an  example  and  terror  to 
others,  —  for  we  do  not  punish  one  animal  for  the 
moral  improvement  of  the  rest ;  so  long  as  he  is 
considered  capable  of  religious  instruction,  —  for 


30  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

we  fancy  the  gorillas  would  make  short  work  with 
a  missionary ;  so  long  as  there  are  fears  of  insur 
rection,  —  for  we  never  heard  of  a  combined  effort 
at  revolt  in  a  menagerie.  Accordingly,  we  do  not 
see  how  the  particular  right  of  whose  infringement 
we  hear  so  much  is  to  be  made  safer  by  the  election 
of  Mr.  Bell,  Mr.  Breckinridge,  or  Mr.  Douglas,  — 
there  being  quite  as  little  chance  that  any  of  them 
would  abolish  human  nature  as  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  abolish  slavery.  The  same  generous  instinct 
that  leads  some  among  us  to  sympathize  with  the 
sorrows  of  the  bereaved  master  will  always,  we 
fear,  influence  others  to  take  part  with  the  rescued 
man. 

But  if  our  Constitutional  Obligations,  as  we 
like  to  call  our  constitutional  timidity  or  indif 
ference,  teach  us  that  a  particular  divinity  hedges 
the  Domestic  Institution,  they  do  not  require  us 
to  forget  that  we  have  institutions  of  our  own, 
worth  maintaining  and  extending,  and  not  with 
out  a  certain  sacredness,  whether  we  regard  the 
traditions  of  the  fathers  or  the  faith  of  the  chil 
dren.  It  is  high  time  that  we  should  hear  some 
thing  of  the  rights  of  the  Free  States,  and  of  the 
duties  consequent  upon  them.  We  also  have  our 
prejudices  to  be  respected,  our  theory  of  civiliza 
tion,  of  what  constitutes  the  safety  of  a  state  and 
insures  its  prosperity,  to  be  applied  wherever  there 
is  soil  enough  for  a  human  being  to  stand  on  and 
thank  God  for  making  him  a  man.  Is  conserva 
tism  applicable  only  to  property,  and  not  to  jus 
tice,  freedom,  and  public  honor?  Does  it  mean 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          31 

merely  drifting  with  the  current  of  evil  times  and 
pernicious  counsels,  and  carefully  nursing  the  ills 
we  have,  that  they  may,  as  their  nature  it  is,  grow 
worse  ? 

To  be  told  that  we  ought  not  to  agitate  the  ques 
tion  of  Slavery,  when  it  is  that  which  is  forever 
agitating  us,  is  like  telling  a  man  with  the  fever 
and  ague  on  him  to  stop  shaking,  and  he  will  be 
cured.  The  discussion  of  Slavery  is  said  to  be 
dangerous,  but  dangerous  to  what?  The  manu 
facturers  of  the  Free  States  constitute  a  more 
numerous  class  than  the  slaveholders  of  the  South: 
suppose  they  should  claim  an  equal  sanctity  for 
the  Protective  System.  Discussion  is  the  very  life 
of  free  institutions,  the  fruitful  mother  of  all  polit 
ical  and  moral  enlightenment,  and  yet  the  question 
of  all  questions  must  be  tabooed.  The  Swiss  guide 
enjoins  silence  in  the  region  of  avalanches,  lest  the 
mere  vibration  of  the  voice  should  dislodge  the 
ruin  clinging  by  frail  roots  of  snow.  But  where 
is  our  avalanche  to  fall?  It  is  to  overwhelm  the 
Union,  we  are  told.  The  real  danger  to  the  Union 
will  come  when  the  encroachments  of  the  Slave- 
Power  and  the  concessions  of  the  Trade-Power 
shall  have  made  it  a  burden  instead  of  a  bless 
ing.  The  real  avalanche  to  be  dreaded,  —  are  we 
to  expect  it  from  the  ever-gathering  mass  of  igno 
rant  brute  force,  with  the  irresponsibility  of  ani 
mals  and  the  passions  of  men,  which  is  one  of  the 
fatal  necessities  of  slavery,  or  from  the  gradually 
increasing  consciousness  of  the  non-slaveholding 
population  of  the  Slave  States  of  the  true  cause 


32  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  their  material  impoverishment  and  political  in 
feriority?  From  one  or  the  other  source  its  ruin 
ous  forces  will  be  fed,  but  in  either  event  it  is  not 
the  Union  that  will  be  imperilled,  but  the  privi 
leged  Order  who  on  every  occasion  of  a  thwarted 
whim  have  menaced  its  disruption,  and  who  will 
then  find  in  it  their  only  safety. 

We  believe  that  the  "  irrepressible  conflict "  — 
for  we  accept  Mr.  Seward's  much-denounced  phrase 
in  all  the  breadth  of  meaning  he  ever  meant  to 
give  it  —  is  to  take  place  in  the  South  itself ;  be 
cause  the  Slave  System  is  one  of  those  fearful 
blunders  in  political  economy  which  are  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  work  their  own  retribution. 
The  inevitable  tendency  of  slavery  is  to  concen 
trate  in  a  few  hands  the  soil,  the  capital,  and 
the  power  of  the  countries  where  it  exists,  to  re 
duce  the  non-slaveholding  class  to  a  continually 
lower  and  lower  level  of  property,  intelligence, 
and  enterprise,  —  their  increase  in  numbers  add 
ing  much  to  the  economical  hardship  of  their 
position  and  nothing  to  their  political  weight  in 
the  community.  There  is  no  home-encourage 
ment  of  varied  agriculture,  —  for  the  wants  of  a 
slave  population  are  few  in  number  and  limited 
in  kind ;  none  of  inland  trade,  for  that  is  devel 
oped  only  by  communities  where  education  in 
duces  refinement,  where  facility  of  communica 
tion  stimulates  invention  and  variety  of  enterprise, 
where  newspapers  make  every  man's  improvement 
in  tools,  machinery,  or  culture  of  the  soil  an  in 
citement  to  all,  and  bring  all  the  thinkers  of  the 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          33 

world  to  teach  in  the  cheap  university  of  the 
people.  We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  say  that 
slaveholding  States  may  not  and  do  not  produce 
fine  men;  but  they  fail,  by  the  inherent  vice  of 
their  constitution  and  its  attendant  consequences, 
to  create  enlightened,  powerful,  and  advancing 
communities  of  men,  which  is  the  true  object  of 
all  political  organizations,  and  is  essential  to  the 
prolonged  existence  of  all  those  whose  life  and 
spirit  are  derived  directly  from  the  people.  Every 
man  who  has  dispassionately  endeavored  to  en 
lighten  himself  in  the  matter  cannot  but  see, 
that,  for  the  many,  the  course  of  things  in  slave- 
holding  States  is  substantially  what  we  have 
described,  a  downward  one,  more  or  less  rapid, 
in  civilization  and  in  all  those  results  of  mate 
rial  prosperity  which  in  a  free  country  show 
themselves  in  the  general  advancement  for  the 
good  of  all,  and  give  a  real  meaning  to  the  word 
Commonwealth.  No  matter  how  enormous  the 
wealth  centred  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  it  has  no 
longer  the  conservative  force  or  the  beneficent  in 
fluence  which  it  exerts  when  equably  distributed, 
—  even  loses  more  of  both  where  a  system  of 
absenteeism  prevails  so  largely  as  in  the  South. 
In  such  communities  the  seeds  of  an  "  irrepres 
sible  conflict "  are  surely  if  slowly  ripening,  and 
signs  are  daily  multiplying  that  the  true  peril  to 
their  social  organization  is  looked  for,  less  in  a 
revolt  of  the  owned  labor  than  in  an  insurrec 
tion  of  intelligence  in  the  labor  that  owns  itself 
and  finds  itself  none  the  richer  for  it.  To  mul 
tiply  such  communities  is  to  multiply  weakness. 


34  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

The  election  in  November  turns  on  the  single 
and  simple  question,  Whether  we  shall  consent 
to  the  indefinite  multiplication  of  them  ;  and  the 
only  party  which  stands  plainly  and  unequivocally 
pledged  against  such  a  policy,  nay,  which  is  not 
either  openly  or  impliedly  in  favor  of  it,  —  is 
the  Republican  party.  We  are  of  those  who  at 
first  regretted  that  another  candidate  was  not  nomi 
nated  at  Chicago ;  but  we  confess  that  we  have 
ceased  to  regret  it,  for  the  magnanimity  of  Mr. 
Seward  since  the  result  of  the  Convention  was 
known  has  been  a  greater  ornament  to  him  and 
a  greater  honor  to  his  party  than  his  election  to 
the  Presidency  would  have  been.  We  should  have 
been  pleased  with  Mr.  Seward's  nomination,  for 
the  very  reason  we  have  seen  assigned  for  passing 
him  by,  —  that  he  represented  the  most  advanced 
doctrines  of  his  party.  He,  more  than  any  other 
man,  combined  in  himself  the  moralist's  oppug- 
nancy  to  Slavery  as  a  fact,  the  thinker's  resent 
ment  of  it  as  a  theory,  and  the  statist's  distrust 
of  it  as  a  policy,  —  thus  summing  up  the  three 
efficient  causes  that  have  chiefly  aroused  and 
concentrated  the  antagonism  of  the  Free  States. 
Not  a  brilliant  man,  he  has  that  best  gift  of  Na 
ture,  which  brilliant  men  commonly  lack,  of  being 
always  able  to  do  his  best ;  and  the  very  misrep 
resentation  of  his  opinions  which  was  resorted  to 
in  order  to  neutralize  the  effect  of  his  speeches 
in  the  Senate  and  elsewhere  was  the  best  testimony 
to  their  power.  Safe  from  the  prevailing  epi 
demic  of  Congressional  eloquence  as  if  he  had 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.    35 

been  inoculated  for  it  early  in  his  career,  he  ad 
dresses  himself  to  the  reason,  and  what  he  says 
sticks.  It  was  assumed  that  his  nomination  would 
have  embittered  the  contest  and  tainted  the  Re 
publican  creed  with  radicalism;  but  we  doubt  it. 
We  cannot  think  that  a  party  gains  by  not  hit 
ting  its  hardest,  or  by  sugaring  its  opinions.  Re 
publicanism  is  not  a  conspiracy  to  obtain  office 
under  false  pretences.  It  has  a  definite  aim,  an 
earnest  purpose,  and  the  unflinching  tenacity  of 
profound  conviction.  It  was  not  called  into  being 
by  a  desire  to  reform  the  pecuniary  corruptions 
of  the  party  now  in  power.  Mr.  Bell  or  Mr. 
Breckinridge  would  do  that,  for  no  one  doubts 
their  honor  or  their  honesty.  It  is  not  unani 
mous  about  the  Tariff,  about  State-Rights,  about 
many  other  questions  of  policy.  What  unites 
the  Republicans  is  a  common  faith  in  the  early 
principles  and  practice  of  the  Republic,  a  com 
mon  persuasion  that  slavery,  as  it  cannot  but  be 
the  natural  foe  of  the  one,  has  been  the  chief  de- 
baser  of  the  other,  and  a  common  resolve  to  re 
sist  its  encroachments  everywhen  and  everywhere. 
They  see  no  reason  to  fear  that  the  Constitution, 
which  has  shown  such  pliant  tenacity  under  the 
warps  and  twistings  of  a  forty-years'  pro-slavery 
pressure,  should  be  in  danger  of  breaking,  if 
bent  backward  again  gently  to  its  original  rec 
titude  of  fibre.  "  All  forms  of  human  govern 
ment,"  says  Machiavelli,  "have,  like  men,  their 
natural  term,  and  those  only  are  long-lived  which 
possess  in  themselves  the  power  of  returning  to 


36  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

the    principles    on    which    they    were    originally 
founded." 

It  is  in  a  moral  aversion  to  slavery  as  a  great 
wrong  that  the  chief  strength  of  the  Republican 
party  lies.  They  believe  as  everybody  believed 
sixty  years  ago  ;  and  we  are  sorry  to  see  what  ap 
pears  to  be  an  inclination  in  some  quarters  to  blink 
this  aspect  of  the  case,  lest  the  party  be  charged 
with  want  of  conservatism,  or,  what  is  worse,  with 
abolitionism.  It  is  and  will  be  charged  with  all 
kinds  of  dreadful  things,  whatever  it  does,  and  it 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  an  upright  and  downright 
declaration  of  its  faith.  One  part  of  the  grateful 
work  it  has  to  do  is  to  deliver  us  from  the  curse  of 
perpetual  concession  for  the  sake  of  a  peace  that 
never  comes,  and  which,  if  it  came,  would  not  be 
peace,  but  submission,  —  from  that  torpor  and  im 
becility  of  faith  in  God  and  man  which  have  stolen 
the  respectable  name  of  Conservatism.  A  question 
which  cuts  so  deep  as  that  which  now  divides  the 
country  cannot  be  debated,  much  less  settled,  with 
out  excitement.  Such  excitement  is  healthy,  and 
is  a  sign  that  the  ill  humors  of  the  body  politic  are 
coming  to  the  surface,  where  they  are  compara 
tively  harmless.  It  is  the  tendency  of  all  creeds, 
opinions,  and  political  dogmas  that  have  once  de 
fined  themselves  in  institutions  to  become  inoper 
ative.  The  vital  and  formative  principle,  which 
was  active  during  the  process  of  crystallization  into 
sects,  or  schools  of  thought,  or  governments,  ceases 
to  act ;  and  what  was  once  a  living  emanation  of 
the  Eternal  Mind,  organically  operative  in  history, 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          37 

becomes  the  dead  formula  on  men's  lips  and  the 
dry  topic  of  the  annalist.  It  has  been  our  good 
fortune  that  a  question  has  been  thrust  upon  us 
which  has  forced  us  to  reconsider  the  primal  prin 
ciples  of  government,  which  has  appealed  to  con 
science  as  well  as  reason,  and,  by  bringing  the  the 
ories  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  the 
test  of  experience  in  our  thought  and  life  and  ac 
tion,  has  realized  a  tradition  of  the  memory  into  a 
conviction  of  the  understanding  and  the  soul.  It 
will  not  do  for  the  Kepublicans  to  confine  them 
selves  to  the  mere  political  argument,  for  the  mat 
ter  then  becomes  one  of  expediency,  with  two 
defensible  sides  to  it ;  they  must  go  deeper,  to 
the  radical  question  of  right  and  wrong,  or  they 
surrender  the  chief  advantage  of  their  position. 
What  Spinoza  says  of  laws  is  equally  trite  of  party 
platforms,  —  that  those  are  strong  which  appeal 
to  reason,  but  those  are  impregnable  which  compel 
the  assent  both  of  reason  and  the  common  affec 
tions  of  mankind. 

No  man  pretends  that  under  the  Constitution 
there  is  any  possibility  of  interference  with  the  do 
mestic  relations  of  the  individual  States  ;  no  party 
has  ever  remotely  hinted  at  any  such  interference  ; 
but  what  the  Republicans  affirm  is,  that  in  every 
contingency  where  the  Constitution  can  be  con 
strued  in  favor  of  freedom,  it  ought  to  be  and  shall 
be  so  construed.  It  is  idle  to  talk  of  sectionalism, 
abolitionism,  and  hostility  to  the  laws.  The  princi 
ples  of  liberty  and  humanity  cannot,  by  virtue  of 
their  very  nature,  be  sectional,  any  more  than  light 


38  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

and  heat.  Prevention  is  not  abolition,  and  unjust 
laws  are  the  only  serious  enemies  that  Law  ever  had. 
With  history  before  us,  it  is  no  treason  to  question 
the  infallibility  of  a  court ;  for  courts  are  never 
wiser  or  more  venerable  than  the  men  composing 
them,  and  a  decision  that  reverses  precedent  can 
not  arrogate  to  itself  any  immunity  from  reversal. 
Truth  is  the  only  unrepeatable  thing. 

We  are  gravely  requested  to  have  no  opinion, 
or,  having  one,  to  suppress  it,  on  the  one  topic  that 
has  occupied  caucuses,  newspapers,  Presidents' 
messages,  and  Congress  for  the  last  dozen  years, 
lest  we  endanger  the  safety  of  the  Union.  The 
true  danger  to  popular  forms  of  government  be 
gins  when  public  opinion  ceases  because  the  peo 
ple  are  incompetent  or  unwilling  to  think.  In  a 
democracy  it  is  the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  think ; 
but  unless  the  thinking  result  in  a  definite  opinion, 
and  the  opinion  lead  to  considerate  action,  they 
are  nothing.  If  the  people  are  assumed  to  be  in 
capable  of  forming  a  judgment  for  themselves,  the 
men  whose  position  enables  them  to  guide  the  pub 
lic  mind  ought  certainly  to  make  good  their  want 
of  intelligence.  But  on  this  great  question,  the 
wise  solution  of  which,  we  are  every  day  assured, 
is  essential  to  the  permanence  of  the  Union,  Mr. 
Bell  has  no  opinion  at  all,  Mr.  Douglas  says  it  is 
of  no  consequence  which  opinion  prevails,  and  Mr. 
Breckinridge  tells  us  vaguely  that  "  all  sections 
have  an  equal  right  in  the  common  Territories." 
The  parties  which  support  these  candidates,  how 
ever,  all  agree  in  affirming  that  the  election  of  its 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          39 

special  favorite  is  the  one  thing  that  can  give  back 
peace  to  the  distracted  country.  The  distracted 
country  will  continue  to  take  care  of  itself,  as  it 
has  done  hitherto,  and  the  only  question  that  needs 
an  answer  is,  What  policy  will  secure  the  most 
prosperous  future  to  the  helpless  Territories,  which 
our  decision  is  to  make  or  mar  for  all  coming 
time  ?  What  will  save  the  country  from  a  Senate 
and  Supreme  Court  where  freedom  shall  be  forever 
at  a  disadvantage  ? 

There  is  always  a  fallacy  in  the  argument  of  the 
opponents  of  the  Republican  party.  They  affirm 
that  all  the  States  and  all  the  citizens  of  the  States 
ought  to  have  equal  rights  in  the  Territories.  Un 
doubtedly.  But  the  difficulty  is  that  they  cannot. 
The  slaveholder  moves  into  a  new  Territory  with 
his  institution,  and  from  that  moment  the  free 
white  settler  is  virtually  excluded.  His  institu 
tions  he  cannot  take  with  him  ;  they  refuse  to  root 
themselves  in  soil  that  is  cultivated  by  slave-labor. 
Speech  is  no  longer  free ;  the  post-office  is  Aus- 
trianized ;  the  mere  fact  of  Northern  birth  may  be 
enough  to  hang  him.  Even  now  in  Texas,  settlers 
from  the  Free  States  are  being  driven  out  and  mur 
dered  for  pretended  complicity  in  a  plot  the  evi 
dence  for  the  existence  of  which  has  been  obtained 
by  means  without  a  parallel  since  the  trial  of  the 
Salem  witches,  and  the  stories  about  which  are 
as  absurd  and  contradictory  as  the  confessions  of 
Goodwife  Corey.  Kansas  was  saved,  it  is  true  ; 
but  it  was  the  experience  of  Kansas  that  disgusted 
the  South  with  Mr.  Douglas's  panacea  of  "  Squat 
ter  Sovereignty." 


40  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

The  claim  of  equal  rights  in  the  Territories  is 
a  specious  fallacy.  Concede  the  demand  of  the 
slavery-extensionists,  and  you  give  up  every  inch 
of  territory  to  slavery,  to  the  absolute  exclusion  of 
freedom.  For  what  they  ask  (however  they  may 
disguise  it)  is  simply  this,  —  that  their  local  law 
be  made  the  law  of  the  land,  and  coextensive  with 
the  limits  of  the  General  Government.  The  Con 
stitution  acknowledges  no  unqualified  or  intermi 
nable  right  of  property  in  the  labor  of  another  ; 
and  the  plausible  assertion,  that  "  that  is  property 
which  the  law  makes  property  "  (confounding  a  law 
existing  anywhere  with  the  law  which  is  binding 
everywhere),  can  deceive  only  those  who  have 
either  never  read  the  Constitution,  or  are  ignorant 
of  the  opinions  and  intentions  of  those  who  framed 
it.  It  is  true  only  of  the  States  where  slavery 
already  exists ;  and  it  is  because  the  propagandists 
of  slavery  are  well  aware  of  this,  that  they  are  so 
anxious  to  establish  by  positive  enactment  the  seem 
ingly  moderate  title  to  a  right  of  existence  for  their 
institution  in  the  Territories,  —  a  title  which  they 
do  not  possess,  and  the  possession  of  which  would 
give  them  the  oyster  and  the  Free  States  the  shells. 
Laws  accordingly  are  asked  for  to  protect  South 
ern  property  in  the  Territories,  —  that  is,  to  pro 
tect  the  inhabitants  from  deciding  for  themselves 
what  their  frame  of  government  shall  be.  Such 
laws  will  be  passed,  and  the  fairest  portion  of  our 
national  domain  irrevocably  closed  to  free  labor,  if 
the  Non-slaveholding  States  fail  to  do  their  duty 
in  the  present  crisis. 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          41 

But  will  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  endanger 
the  Union  ?  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that,  as 
the  prospect  of  his  success  increases,  the  menaces 
of  secession  grow  fainter  and  less  frequent.  Mr. 
W.  L.  Yancey,  to  be  sure,  threatens  to  secede ;  but 
the  country  can  get  along  without  him,  and  we  wish 
him  a  prosperous  career  in  foreign  parts.  But  Gov 
ernor  Wise  no  longer  proposes  to  seize  the  Treasury 
at  Washington,  —  perhaps  because  Mr.  Buchanan 
has  left  so  little  in  it.  The  old  Mumbo-Jumbo  is 
occasionally  paraded  at  the  North,  but,  however 
many  old  women  may  be  frightened,  the  pulse  of 
the  stock-market  remains  provokingly  calm.  Gen 
eral  Gushing,  infringing  the  patent-right  of  the  late 
Mr.  James,  the  novelist,  has  seen  a  solitary  horse 
man  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon.  The  exegesis  of 
the  vision  has  been  various,  some  thinking  that  it 
means  a  Military  Despot,  —  though  in  that  case 
the  force  of  cavalry  would  seem  to  be  inadequate, 
—  and  others  the  Pony  Express.  If  it  had  been 
one  rider  on  two  horses,  the  application  would  have 
been  more  general  and  less  obscure.  In  fact,  the 
old  cry  of  Disunion  has  lost  its  terrors,  if  it  ever 
had  any,  at  the  North.  The  South  itself  seems  to 
have  become  alarmed  at  its  own  scarecrow,  and 
speakers  there  are  beginning  to  assure  their  hearers 
that  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  will  do  them  no 
harm.  We  entirely  agree  with  them,  for  it  will 
save  them  from  themselves. 

To  believe  any  organized  attempt  by  the  Re 
publican  party  to  disturb  the  existing  internal  pol 
icy  of  the  Southern  States  possible  presupposes  a 


42  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

manifest  absurdity.  Before  anything  of  the  kind 
could  take  place,  the  country  must  be  in  a  state  of 
forcible  revolution.  But  there  is  no  premonitory 
symptom  of  any  such  convulsion,  unless  we  except 
Mr.  Yancey,  and  that  gentleman's  throwing  a  soli 
tary  somerset  will  hardly  turn  the  continent  head 
over  heels.  The  administration  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
will  be  conservative,  because  no  government  is  ever 
intentionally  otherwise,  and  because  power  never 
knowingly  undermines  the  foundation  on  which  it 
rests.  All  that  the  Free  States  demand  is  that 
influence  in  the  councils  of  the  nation  to  which 
they  are  justly  entitled  by  their  population,  wealth, 
and  intelligence.  That  these  elements  of  prosperity 
have  increased  more  rapidly  among  them  than  in 
communities  otherwise  organized,  with  greater  ad 
vantages  of  soil,  climate,  and  mineral  productions, 
is  certainly  no  argument  that  they  are  incapable  of 
the  duties  of  efficient  and  prudent  administration, 
however  strong  a  one  it  may  be  for  their  endeavor 
ing  to  secure  for  the  Territories  the  single  supe 
riority  that  has  made  them  what  they  are.  The 
object  of  the  Republican  party  is  not  the  abolition 
of  African  slavery,  but  the  utter  extirpation  of 
dogmas  which  are  the  logical  sequence  of  attempts 
to  establish  its  righteousness  and  wisdom,  and  which 
would  serve  equally  well  to  justify  the  enslavement 
of  every  white  man  unable  to  protect  himself.  They 
believe  that  slavery  is  a  wrong  morally,  a  mistake 
politically,  and  a  misfortune  practically,  wherever 
it  exists ;  that  it  has  nullified  our  influence  abroad 
and  forced  us  to  compromise  with  our  better  in- 


THE  ELECTION  IN  NOVEMBER.          43 

stincts  at  home ;  that  it  has  perverted  our  govern 
ment  from  its  legitimate  objects,  weakened,  the 
respect  for  the  laws  by  making  them  the  tools  of  its 
purposes,  and  sapped  the  faith  of  men  in  any 
higher  political  morality  than  interest  or  any  better 
statesmanship  than  chicane.  They  mean  in  every 
lawful  way  to  hem  it  within  its  present  limits. 

We  are  persuaded  that  the  election  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln  will  do  more  than  anything  else  to  appease  the 
excitement  of  the  country.  He  has  proved  both 
his  ability  and  his  integrity ;  he  has  had  experience 
enough  in  public  affairs  to  make  him  a  statesman, 
and  not  enough  to  make  him  a  politician.  That  he 
has  not  had  more  will  be  no  objection  to  him  in  the 
eyes  of  those  who  have  seen  the  administration  of 
the  experienced  public  functionary  whose  term  of 
office  is  just  drawing  to  a  close.  He  represents  a 
party  who  know  that  true  policy  is  gradual  in  its 
advances,  that  it  is  conditional  and  not  absolute, 
that  it  must  deal  with  facts  and  not  with  sentiments, 
but  who  know  also  that  it  is  wiser  to  stamp  out  evil 
in  the  spark  than  to  wait  till  there  is  no  help  but  in 
fighting  fire  with  fire.  They  are  the  only  conserva 
tive  party,  because  they  are  the  only  one  based  on 
an  enduring  principle,  the  only  one  that  is  not  will 
ing  to  pawn  to-morrow  for  the  means  to  gamble  with 
to-day.  They  have  no  hostility  to  the  South,  but  a 
determined  one  to  doctrines  of  whose  ruinous  ten 
dency  every  day  more  and  more  convinces  them. 

The  encroachments  of  Slavery  upon  our  national 
policy  have  been  like  those  of  a  glacier  in  a  Swiss 
valley.  Inch  by  inch,  the  huge  dragon  with  its 


44  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

glittering  scales  and  crests  of  ice  coils  itself  onward, 
an  anachronism  of  summer,  the  relic  of  a  by-gone 
world  where  such  monsters  swarmed.  But  it  has 
its  limit,  the  kindlier  forces  of  Nature  work  against 
it,  and  the  silent  arrows  of  the  sun  are  still,  as  of 
old,  fatal  to  the  frosty  Python.  Geology  tells  us 
that  such  enormous  devastators  once  covered  the 
face  of  the  earth,  but  the  benignant  sunlight  of 
heaven  touched  them,  and  they  faded  silently,  leav 
ing  no  trace,  but  here  and  there  the  scratches  of  their 
talons,  and  the  gnawed  boulders  scattered  where 
they  made  their  lair.  We  have  entire  faith  in  the 
benignant  influence  of  Truth,  the  sunlight  of  the 
moral  world,  and  believe  that  slavery,  like  other 
worn-out  systems,  will  melt  gradually  before  it. 
"  All  the  earth  cries  out  upon  Truth,  and  the  hea 
ven  blesseth  it ;  ill  works  shake  and  tremble  at  it, 
and  with  it  is  no  unrighteous  thing." 


E  PLURIBUS  UNUM. 
1861. 

WE  do  not  believe  that  any  government  —  no, 
not  the  Rump  Parliament  on  its  last  legs  —  ever 
showed  such  pitiful  inadequacy  as  our  own  during 
the  past  two  months.  Helpless  beyond  measure 
in  all  the  duties  of  practical  statesmanship,  its 
members  or  their  dependants  have  given  proof  of 
remarkable  energy  in  the  single  department  of 
peculation ;  and  there,  not  content  with  the  slow 
methods  of  the  old-fashioned  defaulter,  who  helped 
himself  only  to  what  there  was,  they  have  contrived 
to  steal  what  there  was  going  to  be,  and  have  pecu 
lated  in  advance  by  a  kind  of  official  post-obit.  So 
thoroughly  has  the  credit  of  the  most  solvent  nation 
in  the  world  been  shaken,  that  an  administration 
which  still  talks  of  paying  a  hundred  millions  for 
Cuba  is  unable  to  raise  a  loan  of  five  millions  for 
the  current  expenses  of  government.  Nor  is  this 
the  worst :  the  moral  bankruptcy  at  Washington  is 
more  complete  and  disastrous  than  the  financial, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  our  history  the  Executive 
is  suspected  of  complicity  in  a  treasonable  plot 
against  the  very  life  of  the  nation. 

Our  material  prosperity  for  nearly  half  a  century 
has  been  so  unparalleled  that  the  minds  of  men  have 


46  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

become  gradually  more  and  more  absorbed  in 
matters  of  personal  concern  ;  and  our  institutions 
have  practically  worked  so  well  and  so  easily  that 
we  have  learned  to  trust  in  our  luck,  and  to  take 
the  permanence  of  our  government  for  granted. 
The  country  has  been  divided  on  questions  of  tem 
porary  policy,  and  the  people  have  been  drilled  to 
a  wonderful  discipline  in  the  manoeuvres  of  party 
tactics ;  but  no  crisis  has  arisen  to  force  upon  them 
a  consideration  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
our  system,  or  to  arouse  in  them  a  sense  of  national 
unity,  and  make  them  feel  that  patriotism  was  any 
thing  more  than  a  pleasant  sentiment, —  half  Fourth 
of  July  and  half  Eighth  of  January,  —  a  feeble 
reminiscence,  rather  than  a  living  fact  with  a  direct 
bearing  on  the  national  well-being.  We  have  had 
long  experience  of  that  unmemorable  felicity  which 
consists  in  having  no  history,  so  far  as  history  is 
made  up  of  battles,  revolutions,  and  changes  of 
dynasty ;  but  the  present  generation  has  never 
been  called  upon  to  learn  that  deepest  lesson  of 
politics  which  is  taught  by  a  common  danger, 
throwing  the  people  back  on  their  national  instincts, 
and  superseding  party-leaders,  the  peddlers  of 
chicane,  with  men  adequate  to  great  occasions  and 
dealers  in  destiny.  Such  a  crisis  is  now  upon  us  ; 
and  if  the  virtue  of  the  people  make  up  for  the 
imbecility  of  the  Executive,  as  we  have  little  doubt 
that  it  will,  if  the  public  spirit  of  the  whole  coun 
try  be  awakened  in  time  by  the  common  peril,  the 
present  trial  will  leave  the  nation  stronger  than 
ever,  and  more  alive  to  its  privileges  and  the  duties 


E  PLUR1BUS   UNUM.  47 

they  imply.  We  shall  have  learned  what  is  meant 
by  a  government  of  laws,  and  that  allegiance  to  the 
sober  will  of  the  majority,  concentrated  in  estab 
lished  forms  and  distributed  by  legitimate  channels, 
is  all  that  renders  democracy  possible,  is  its  only 
conservative  principle,  the  only  thing  that  has 
made  and  can  keep  us  a  powerful  nation  instead  of 
a  brawling  mob.  . 

The  theory  that  the  best  government  is  that 
which  governs  least  seems  to  have  been  accepted 
literally  by  Mr.  Buchanan,  without  considering  the 
qualifications  to  which  all  general  propositions  are 
subject.  His  course  of  conduct  has  shown  up  its 
absurdity,  in  cases  where  prompt  action  is  required, 
as  effectually  as  Buckingham  turned  into  ridicule 
the  famous  verse,  — 

"My  wound  is  great,  because  it  is  so  small," 

by  instantly  adding,  — 

"  Then  it  were  greater,  were  it  none  at  all." 

Mr.  Buchanan  seems  to  have  thought,  that,  if  to 
govern  little  was  to  govern  well,  then  to  do  nothing 
was  the  perfection  of  policy.  But  there  is  a  vast 
difference  between  letting  well  alone  and  allowing 
bad  to  become  worse  by  a  want  of  firmness  at  the 
outset.  If  Mr.  Buchanan,  instead  of  admitting 
the  right  of  secession,  had  declared  it  to  be,  as  it 
plainly  is,  rebellion,  he  would  not  only  have  re 
ceived  the  unanimous  support  of  the  Free  States, 
but  would  have  given  confidence  to  the  loyal,  re 
claimed  the  wavering,  and  disconcerted  the  plotters 
of  treason  in  the  South. 


48  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Either  we  have  no  government  at  all,  or  else  the 
very  word  implies  the  right,  and  therefore  the  duty, 
in  the  governing  power,  of  protecting  itself  from 
destruction  and  its  property  from  pillage.  But  for 
Mr.  Buchanan's  acquiescence,  the  doctrine  of  the 
right  of  secession  would  never  for  a  moment  have 
bewildered  the  popular  mind.  It  is  simply  mob- 
law  under  a  plausible  name.  Such  a  claim  might 
have  been  fairly  enough  urged  under  the  old  Con 
federation  ;  though  even  then  it  would  have  been 
summarily  dealt  with,  in  the  case  of  a  Tory  colony, 
if  the  necessity  had  arisen.  But  the  very  fact  that 
we  have  a  National  Constitution,  and  legal  methods 
for  testing,  preventing,  or  punishing  any  infringe 
ment  of  its  provisions,  demonstrates  the  absurdity 
of  any  such  assumption  of  right  now.  When  the 
States  surrendered  their  power  to  make  war,  did 
they  make  the  single  exception  of  the  United 
States,  and  reserve  the  privilege  of  declaring  war 
against  them  at  any  moment  ?  If  we  are  a  conge 
ries  of  mediaeval  Italian  republics,  why  should  the 
General  Government  have  expended  immense  sums 
in  fortifying  points  whose  strategic  position  is  of 
continental  rather  than  local  consequence  ?  Florida, 
after  having  cost  us  nobody  knows  how  many  mil 
lions  of  dollars  and  thousands  of  lives  to  render 
the  holding  of  slaves  possible  to  her,  coolly  pro 
poses  to  withdraw  herself  from  the  Union  and  take 
with  her  one  of  the  keys  of  the  Mexican  Gulf,  on 
the  plea  that  her  slave-property  is  rendered  inse 
cure  by  the  Union.  Louisiana,  which  we  bought 
and  paid  for  to  secure  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  49 

sippi,  claims  the  right  to  make  her  soil  French  or 
Spanish,  and  to  cork  up  the  river  again,  whenever 
the  whim  may  take  her.  The  United  States  are 
not  a  German  Confederation,  but  a  unitary  and  in 
divisible  nation,  with  a  national  life  to  protect,  a 
national  power  to  maintain,  and  national  rights  to 
defend  against  any  and  every  assailant,  at  all  haz 
ards.  Our  national  existence  is  all  that  gives  value 
to  American  citizenship.  Without  the  respect 
which  nothing  but  our  consolidated  character  could 
inspire,  we  might  as  well  be  citizens  of  the  toy- 
republic  of  San  Marino,  for  all  the  protection  it 
would  afford  us.  If  our  claim  to  a  national  exist 
ence  was  worth  a  seven  years'  war  to  establish,  it 
is  worth  maintaining  at  any  cost ;  and  it  is  daily 
becoming  more  apparent  that  the  people,  so  soon 
as  they  find  that  secession  means  anything  serious, 
will  not  allow  themselves  to  be  juggled  out  of  their 
rights,  as  members  of  one  of  the  great  powers  of 
the  earth,  by  a  mere  quibble  of  Constitutional  in 
terpretation. 

We  have  been  so  much  accustomed  to  the  Bun 
combe  style  of  oratory,  to  hearing  men  offer  the 
pledge  of  their  lives,  fortunes,  and  sacred  honor  on 
the  most  trivial  occasions,  that  we  are  apt  to  allow 
a  great  latitude  in  such  matters,  and  only  smile  to 
think  how  small  an  advance  any  intelligent  pawn 
broker  would  be  likely  to  make  on  securities  of  this 
description.  The  sporadic  eloquence  that  breaks 
out  over  the  country  on  the  eve  of  election,  and 
becomes  a  chronic  disease  in  the  two  houses  of 
Congress,  has  so  accustomed  us  to  dissociate  words 


50  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

and  things,  and  to  look  upon  strong  language  as 
an  evidence  of  weak  purpose,  that  we  attach  no 
meaning  whatever  to  declamation.  Our  Southern 
brethren  have  been  especially  given  to  these  orgies 
of  loquacity,  and  have  so  often  solemnly  assured  us 
of  their  own  courage,  and  of  the  warlike  propen 
sities,  power,  wealth,  and  general  superiority  of 
that  part  of  the  universe  which  is  so  happy  as  to 
be  represented  by  them,  that,  whatever  other  useful 
impression  they  have  made,  they  insure  our  never 
forgetting  the  proverb  about  the  woman  who  talks 
of  her  virtue.  South  Carolina,  in  particular,  if  she 
has  hitherto  failed  in  the  application  of  her  enter 
prise  to  manufacturing  purposes  of  a  more  practical 
kind,  has  always  been  able  to  match  every  yard 
of  printed  cotton  from  the  North  with  a  yard  of 
printed  fustian,  the  product  of  her  own  domestic 
industry.  We  have  thought  no  harm  of  this,  so 
long  as  no  Act  of  Congress  required  the  reading  of 
the  "  Congressional  Globe."  We  submitted  to  the 
general  dispensation  of  long-windedness  and  short- 
meaningness  as  to  any  other  providental  visitation, 
endeavoring  only  to  hold  fast  our  faith  in  the  divine 
government  of  the  world  in  the  midst  of  so  much 
that  was  past  understanding.  But  we  lost  sight  of 
the  metaphysical  truth,  that,  though  men  may  fail 
to  convince  others  by  a  never  so  incessant  repetition 
of  sonorous  nonsense,  they  nevertheless  gradually 
persuade  themselves,  and  impregnate  their  own 
minds  and  characters  with  a  belief  in  fallacies  that 
have  been  uncontradicted  only  because  not  worth 
contradiction.  Thus  our  Southern  politicians,  by 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  51 

dint  of  continued  reiteration,  have  persuaded  them 
selves  to  accept  their  own  flimsy  assumptions  for 
valid  statistics,  and  at  last  actually  believe  them 
selves  to  be  the  enlightened  gentlemen,  and  the 
people  of  the  Free  States  the  peddlers  and  sneaks 
they  have  so  long  been  in  the  habit  of  fancying. 
They  have  argued  themselves  into  a  kind  of  vague 
faith  that  the  wealth  and  power  of  the  Republic 
are  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line;  and  the 
Northern  people  have  been  slow  in  arriving  at  the 
conclusion  that  treasonable  talk  would  lead  to  trea 
sonable  action,  because  they  could  not  conceive  that 
anybody  should  be  so  foolish  as  to  think  of  rearing 
an  independent  frame  of  government  on  so  vision 
ary  a  basis.  Moreover,  the  so  often  recurring 
necessity,  incident  to  our  system,  of  obtaining  a 
favorable  verdict  from  the  people  has  fostered  in 
our  public  men  the  talents  and  habits  of  jury- 
lawyers  at  the  expense  of  statesmanlike  qualities ; 
and  the  people  have  been  so  long  wonted  to  look 
upon  the  utterances  of  popular  leaders  as  intended 
for  immediate  effect  and  having  no  reference  to 
principles,  that  there  is  scarcely  a  prominent  man 
in  the  country  so  independent  in  position  and  so 
clear  of  any  suspicion  of  personal  or  party  motives 
that  they  can  put  entire  faith  in  what  he  says,  and 
accept  him  either  as  the  leader  or  the  exponent  of 
their  thoughts  and  wishes.  They  have  hardly  been 
able  to  judge  with  certainty  from  the  debates  in 
Congress  whether  secession  were  a  real  danger,  or 
only  one  of  those  political  feints  of  which  they 
have  had  such  frequent  experience. 


52  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Events  have  been  gradually  convincing  them  that 
the  peril  was  actual  and  near.  They  begin  to  see 
how  unwise,  if  nothing  worse,  has  been  the  weak 
policy  of  the  Executive  in  allowing  men  to  play  at 
Revolution  till  they  learn  to  think  the  coarse  reality 
as  easy  and  pretty  as  the  vaudeville  they  have  been 
acting.  They  are  fast  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  list  of  grievances  put  forward  by  the  se 
cessionists  is  a  sham  and  a  pretence,  the  veil  of  a 
long-matured  plot  against  republican  institutions. 
And  it  is  time  the  traitors  of  the  South  should 
know  that  the  Free  States  are  becoming  every 
day  more  united  in  sentiment  and  more  earnest  in 
resolve,  and  that,  so  soon  as  they  are  thoroughly 
satisfied  that  secession  is  something  more  than 
empty  bluster,  a  public  spirit  will  be  aroused  that 
will  be  content  with  no  half-measures,  and  which 
no  Executive,  however  unwilling,  can  resist. 

The  country  is  weary  of  being  cheated  with  plays 
upon  words.  The  United  States  are  a  nation,  and 
not  a  mass-meeting;  theirs  is  a  government,  and 
not  a  caucus,  —  a  government  that  was  meant  to  be 
capable,  and  is  capable,  of  something  more  than  the 
helpless  please  don't  of  a  village  constable ;  they 
have  executive  and  administrative  officers  that  are 
not  mere  puppet-figures  to  go  through  the  motions 
of  an  objectless  activity,  but  arms  and  hands  that 
become  supple  to  do  the  will  of  the  people  so  soon 
as  that  will  becomes  conscious  and  defines  its  pur 
pose.  It  is  time  that  we  turned  up  our  definitions 
in  some  more  trustworthy  dictionary  than  that  of 
avowed  disunionists  and  their  more  dangerous 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  53 

because  more  timid  and  cunning  accomplices. 
Rebellion  smells  no  sweeter  because  it  is  called 
Secession,  nor  does  Order  lose  its  divine  prece 
dence  in  human  affairs  because  a  knave  may  nick 
name  it  Coercion.  Secession  means  chaos,  and 
Coercion  the  exercise  of  legitimate  authority.  You 
cannot  dignify  the  one  nor  degrade  the  other  by 
any  verbal  charlatanism.  The  best  testimony  to 
the  virtue  of  coercion  is  the  fact  that  no  wrongdoer 
ever  thought  well  of  it.  The  thief  in  jail,  the 
mob-leader  in  the  hands  of  the  police,  and  the 
murderer  on  the  drop  will  be  unanimous  in  favor 
of  this  new  heresy  of  the  unconstitutionality  of 
constitutions,  with  its  Newgate  Calendar  of  con 
fessors,  martyrs,  and  saints.  FalstafFs  famous 
regiment  would  have  volunteered  to  a  man  for  its 
propagation  or  its  defence.  Henceforth  let  every 
unsuccessful  litigant  have  the  right  to  pronounce 
the  verdict  of  a  jury  sectional,  and  to  quash  all 
proceedings  and  retain  the  property  in  controversy 
by  seceding  from  the  court-room.  Let  the  planting 
of  hemp  be  made  penal,  because  it  squints  toward 
coercion.  Why,  the  first  great  secessionist  would 
doubtless  have  preferred  to  divide  heaven  peace 
ably,  would  have  been  willing  to  send  commis 
sioners,  must  have  thought  Michael's  proceedings 
injudicious,  and  could  probably  even  now  demon 
strate  the  illegality  of  hell-fire  to  any  five-year-old 
imp  of  average  education  and  intelligence.  What 
a  fine  world  we  should  have,  if  we  could  only  come 
quietly  together  in  convention,  and  declare  by 
unanimous  resolution,  or  even  by  a  two-thirds 


54  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

vote,  that  edge-tools  should  hereafter  cut  every 
body's  fingers  but  his  that  played  with  them; 
that,  when  two  men  ride  on  one  horse,  the  hindmost 
shall  always  sit  in  front;  and  that,  when  a  man 
tries  to  thrust  his  partner  out  of  bed  and  gets 
kicked  out  himself,  he  shall  be  deemed  to  have 
established  his  title  to  an  equitable  division,  and 
the  bed  shall  be  thenceforth  his  as  of  right,  with 
out  detriment  to  the  other's  privilege  in  the  floor ! 

If  secession  be  a  right,  then  the  moment  of  its 
exercise  is  wholly  optional  with  those  possessing  it. 
Suppose,  on  the  eve  of  a  war  with  England,  Michi 
gan  should  vote  herself  out  of  the  Union  and  de 
clare  herself  annexed  to  Canada,  what  kind  of  a 
reception  would  her  commissioners  be  likely  to 
meet  in  Washington,  and  what  scruples  should  we 
feel  about  coercion  ?  Or,  to  take  a  case  precisely 
parallel  to  that  of  South  Carolina,  suppose  that 
Utah,  after  getting  herself  admitted  to  the  Union, 
should  resume  her  sovereignty,  as  it  is  pleasantly 
called,  and  block  our  path  to  the  Pacific,  under  the 
pretence  that  she  did  not  consider  her  institutions 
safe  while  the  other  States  entertained  such  un- 
scriptural  prejudices  against  her  special  weakness 
in  the  patriarchal  line.  Is  the  only  result  of  our 
admitting  a  Territory  on  Monday  to  be  the  giving 
it  a  right  to  steal  itself  and  go  out  again  on  Tues 
day?  Or  do  only  the  original  thirteen  States  possess 
this  precious  privilege  of  suicide  ?  We  shall  need 
something  like  a  Fugitive  Slave  Law  for  runaway 
republics,  and  must  get  a  provision  inserted  in 
our  treaties  with  foreign  powers,  that  they  shall 


E  PLURIBUS  UNUM.  55 

help  us  catch  any  delinquent  who  may  take  refuge 
with  them,  as  South  Carolina  has  been  trying  to 
do  with  England  and  France.  It  does  not  matter 
to  the  argument,  except  so  far  as  the  good  taste  of 
the  proceeding  is  concerned,  at  what  particular 
time  a  State  may  make  her  territory  foreign,  thus 
opening  one  gate  of  our  national  defences  and  of 
fering  a  bridge  to  invasion.  The  danger  of  the 
thing  is  in  her  making  her  territory  foreign  under 
any  circumstances ;  and  it  is  a  danger  which  the 
government  must  prevent,  if  only  for  self-preser 
vation.  Within  the  limits  of  the  constitution  two 
sovereignties  cannot  exist ;  and  yet  what  practical 
odds  does  it  make,  if  a  State  may  become  sovereign 
by  simply  declaring  herself  so?  The  legitimate 
consequence  of  secession  is,  not  that  a  State  be 
comes  sovereign,  but  that,  so  far  as  the  general 
government  is  concerned,  she  has  outlawed  herself, 
nullified  her  own  existence  as  a  State,  and  become 
an  aggregate  of  riotous  men  who  resist  the  execu 
tion  of  the  laws. 

We  are  told  that  coercion  will  be  civil  war ;  \ 
and  so  is  a  mob  civil  war,  till  it  is  put  down.  In 
the  present  case,  the  only  coercion  called  for  is  the 
protection  of  the  public  property,  and  the  collec 
tion  of  the  federal  revenues.  If  it  be  necessary  to 
send  troops  to  do  this,  they  will  not  be  sectional,  as 
it  is  the  fashion  nowadays  to  call  people  who  insist 
on  their  own  rights  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
laws,  but  federal  troops,  representing  the  will  and 
power  of  the  whole  Confederacy.  A  danger  is 
always  great  so  long  as  we  are  afraid  of  it;  and 


56  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

mischief   like  that  now  gathering  head  in  South 
Carolina  may  soon  become  a  danger,  if  not  swiftly 
dealt  with.     Mr.  Buchanan   seems   altogether  too 
wholesale  a  disciple  of   the  laissez-faire  doctrine, 
and  has  allowed  activity  in  mischief  the  same  im 
munity  from  interference  which  is  true  policy  only 
in    regard  to  enterprise  wisely  and  profitably  di 
rected.    He  has  been  naturally  reluctant  to  employ 
force,  but  has  overlooked  the  difference  between  in 
decision  and  moderation,  forgetting  the  lesson  of  all 
experience,  that  firmness  in  the  beginning  saves  the 
need    of   force  in  the  end,  and  that  forcible  mea 
sures  applied  too  late  may  be  made  to  seem  violent 
ones,  and  thus  excite  a  mistaken  sympathy  with 
the  sufferers  by  their  own  misdoing.     The  feeling 
of  the  country  has  been  unmistakably  expressed  in 
regard  to  Major  Anderson,  and  that  not  merely 
because  he  showed  prudence  and  courage,  but  be 
cause  he  was  the  first  man  holding  a  position  of 
trust  who  did  his  duty  to  the  nation.     Public  sen 
timent  unmistakably  demands  that,  in  the  case  of 
Anarchy  vs.  America,  the  cause  of  the  defendant 
shall  not  be  suffered  to  go  by  default.     The  pro 
ceedings  in  South  Carolina,  parodying  the  sublime 
initiative  of  our  own  Revolution  with  a  Declaration 
of  Independence  that  hangs  the  franchise  of  hu 
man  nature  on  the  kink  of  a  hair,  and  substitutes 
for  the  visionary  right  of  all  men  to  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  the  more  practical  privilege  of  some 
men  to  pursue  their  own  negro,  —  these  proceed 
ings  would  be  merely  ludicrous,  were  it  not  for  the 
danger  that  the  men  engaged  in  them  may  so  far 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  57 

commit  themselves  as  to  find  the  inconsistency  of 
a  return  to  prudence  too  galling,  and  to  prefer 
the  safety  of  their  pride  to  that  of  their  country. 

It  cannot  be  too  distinctly  stated  or  too  often  re 
peated  that  the  discontent  of  South  Carolina  is  not 
one  to  be  allayed  by  any  concessions  which  the 
Free  States  can  make  with  dignity  or  even  safety. 
It  is  something  more  radical  and  of  longer  stand 
ing  than  distrust  of  the  motives  or  probable  policy 
of  the  Republican  party.  It  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  a  disbelief  in  the  very  principles  on  which 
our  government  is  founded.  So  long  as  they  prac 
tically  retained  the  government  of  the  country,  and 
could  use  its  power  and  patronage  to  their  own 
advantage,  the  plotters  were  willing  to  wait ;  but 
the  moment  they  lost  that  control,  by  the  break 
ing  up  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  saw  that  their 
chance  of  ever  regaining  it  was  hopeless,  they 
declared  openly  the  principles  on  which  they  have 
all  along  been  secretly  acting.  Denying  the  con 
stitutionality  of  special  protection  to  any  other 
species  of  property  or  branch  of  industry,  and  in 
1832  threatening  to  break  up  the  Union  unless 
their  theory  of  the  Constitution  in  this  respect  were 
admitted,  they  went  into  the  late  Presidential  con 
test  with  a  claim  for  extraordinary  protection  to 
a  certain  kind  of  property  already  the  only  one 
endowed  with  special  privileges  and  immunities. 
Defeated  overwhelmingly  before  the  people,  they 
now  question  the  right  of  the  majority  to  govern, 
except  on  their  terms,  and  threaten  violence  in  the 
hope  of  extorting  from  the  fears  of  the  Free  States 


58  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

what  they  failed  to  obtain  from  their  conscience 
and  settled  convictions  of  duty.  Their  quarrel  is 
not  with  the  Eepublican  party,  but  with  the  theory 
of  Democracy. 

The  South  Carolina  politicians  have  hitherto 
shown  themselves  adroit  managers,  shrewd  in  de 
tecting  and  profiting  by  the  weaknesses  of  men  ; 
but  their  experience  has  not  been  of  a  kind  to  give 
them  practical  wisdom  in  that  vastly  more  impor 
tant  part  of  government  which  depends  for  success 
on  common  sense  and  business  habits.  The  mem 
bers  of  the  South  Carolina  Convention  have  prob 
ably  less  knowledge  of  political  economy  than  any 
single  average  Northern  merchant  whose  success 
depends  on  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
trade  and  the  world-wide  contingencies  of  profit 
and  loss.  Such  a  man  would  tell  them,  as  the 
result  of  invariable  experience,  that  the  prosperity 
of  no  community  was  so  precarious  as  that  of  one 
whose  very  existence  was  dependent  on  a  single 
agricultural  product.  What  divinity  hedges  cot 
ton,  that  competition  may  not  touch  it,  —  that 
some  disease,  like  that  of  the  potato  and  the  vine, 
may  not  bring  it  to  beggary  in  a  single  year,  and 
cure  the  overweening  conceit  of  prosperity  with 
the  sharp  medicine  of  Ireland  and  Madeira  ?  But 
these  South  Carolina  economists  are  better  at  va 
poring  than  at  calculation.  They  will  find  to  their 
cost  that  the  figures  of  statistics  have  little  mercy 
for  the  figures  of  speech,  which  are  so  powerful 
in  raising  enthusiasm  and  so  helpless  in  raising 
money.  The  eating  of  one  's  own  words,  as  they 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  59 

must  do,  sooner  or  later,  is  neither  agreeable  nor 
nutritious;  but  it  is  better  to  do  it  before  there 
is  nothing  else  left  to  eat.  The  secessionists  are 
strong  in  declamation,  but  they  are  weak  in  the 
multiplication-table  and  the  ledger.  They  have 
no  notion  of  any  sort  of  logical  connection  between 
treason  and  taxes.  It  is  all  very  fine  signing  De 
clarations  of  Independence,  and  one  may  thus  be 
come  a  kind  of  panic-price  hero  for  a  week  or  two, 
even  rising  to  the  effigial  martyrdom  of  the  illus 
trated  press;  but  these  gentlemen  seem  to  have 
forgotten  that,  if  their  precious  document  should 
lead  to  anything  serious,  they  have  been  signing 
promises  to  pay  for  the  State  of  South  Carolina  to 
an  enormous  amount.  It  is  probably  far  short  of 
the  truth  to  say  that  the  taxes  of  an  autonomous 
palmetto  republic  would  be  three  times  what  they 
are  now.  To  speak  of  nothing  else,  there  must  be 
a  military  force  kept  constantly  on  foot ;  and  the 
ministers  of  King  Cotton  will  find  that  the  charge 
made  by  a  standing  army  on  the  finances  of  the 
new  empire  is  likely  to  be  far  more  serious  and 
damaging  than  can  be  compensated  by  the  glory  of 
a  great  many  such  "  spirited  charges  "  as  that  by 
which  Colonel  Pettigrew  and  his  gallant  rifles  took 
Fort  Pinckney,  with  its  garrison  of  one  engineer 
officer  and  its  armament  of  no  guns.  Soldiers  are 
the  most  costly  of  all  toys  or  tools.  The  outgo 
for  the  army  of  the  Pope,  never  amounting  to  ten 
thousand  effective  men,  in  the  cheapest  country  in 
the  world,  has  been  half  a  million  of  dollars  a 
month.  Under  the  present  system,  it  needs  no 


60  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

argument  to  show  that  the  non-slaveholding  States, 
with  a  free  population  considerably  more  than 
double  that  of  the  slaveholding  States,  and  with 
much  more  generally  distributed  wealth  and  oppor 
tunities  of  spending,  pay  far  more  than  the  propor 
tion  predicable  on  mere  preponderance  in  numbers 
of  the  expenses  of  a  government  supported  mainly 
by  a  tariff  on  importations.  And  it  is  not  the 
burden  of  this  difference  merely  that  the  new 
Cotton  Republic  must  assume.  They  will  need  as 
large,  probably  a  larger,  army  and  navy  than  that 
of  the  present  Union  ;  as  numerous  a  diplomatic 
establishment ;  a  postal  system  whose  large  yearly 
deficit  they  must  bear  themselves ;  and  they  must 
assume  the  main  charges  of  the  Indian  Bureau.  If 
they  adopt  free  trade,  they  will  alienate  the  Border 
Slave  States,  and  even  Louisiana ;  if  a  system  of 
customs,  they  have  cut  themselves  off  from  the 
chief  consumers  of  foreign  goods.  One  of  the 
calculations  of  the  Southern  conspirators  is  to 
render  the  Free  States  tributary  to  their  new  re 
public  by  adopting  free  trade  and  smuggling  their 
imported  goods  across  the  border.  But  this  is  all 
moonshine ;  for,  even  if  smuggling  could  not  be 
prevented  as  easily  as  it  now  is  from  the  British 
Provinces,  how  long  would  it  be  before  the  North 
would  adapt  its  tariff  to  the  new  order  of  things  ? 
And  thus  thrown  back  upon  direct  taxation,  how 
many  years  would  it  take  to  open  the  eyes  of  the 
poorer  classes  of  Secessia  to  the  hardship  of  their 
position  and  its  causes  ?  Their  ignorance  has  been 
trifled  with  by  men  who  cover  treasonable  designs 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  61 

with  a  pretence  of  local  patriotism.  Neither  they 
nor  their  misleaders  have  any  true  conception  of 
the  people  of  the  Free  States,  of  those  "white 
slaves  "  who  in  Massachusetts  alone  have  a  deposit 
in  the  Savings  Banks  whose  yearly  interest  would 
pay  seven  times  over  the  four  hundred  thousand 
dollars  which  South  Carolina  cannot  raise. 

But  even  if  we  leave  other  practical  difficulties 
out  of  sight,  what  chance  of  stability  is  there  for  a 
confederacy  whose  very  foundation  is  the  principle 
that  any  member  of  it  may  withdraw  at  the  first 
discontent  ?  If  they  could  contrive  to  establish  a 
free  trade  treaty  with  their  chief  customer,  England, 
would  she  consent  to  gratify  Louisiana  with  an  ex 
ception  in  favor  of  sugar  ?  Some  of  the  leaders  of 
the  secession  movement  have  already  become  aware 
of  this  difficulty,  and  accordingly  propose  the  abo 
lition  of  all  State  lines,  —  the  first  step  toward  a 
military  despotism ;  for,  if  our  present  system  have 
one  advantage  greater  than  another,  it  is  the  neu 
tralization  of  numberless  individual  ambitions  by 
adequate  opportunities  of  provincial  distinction. 
Even  now  the  merits  of  the  Napoleonic  system  are 
put  forward  by  some  of  the  theorists  of  Alabama 
and  Mississippi,  who  doubtless  have  as  good  a 
stomach  to  be  emperors  as  ever  Bottom  had  to  a 
bottle  of  hay,  when  his  head  was  temporarily  trans 
formed  to  the  likeness  of  theirs,  —  and  who,  were 
they  subjects  of  the  government  that  looks  so  nice 
across  the  Atlantic,  would,  ere  this,  have  been  on 
their  way  to  Cayenne,  a  spot  where  such  red-pep 
pery  temperaments  would  find  themselves  at  home. 


62  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

The  absurdities  with  which  the  telegraphic 
column  of  the  newspapers  has  been  daily  crowded, 
since  the  vagaries  of  South  Carolina  finally  settled 
down  into  unmistakable  insanity,  would  give  us 
but  a  poor  opinion  of  the  general  intelligence  of  the 
country,  did  we  not  know  that  they  were  due  to  the 
necessities  of  "  Our  Own  Correspondent."  At  one 
time,  it  is  Fort  Sumter  that  is  to  be  bombarded 
with  floating  batteries  mounted  on  rafts  behind 
a  rampart  of  cotton-bales ;  at  another,  it  is  Mr. 
Barrett,  Mayor  of  Washington,  announcing  his  in 
tention  that  the  President-elect  shall  be  inaugu 
rated,  or  Mr.  Buchanan  declaring  that  he  shall 
cheerfully  assent  to  it.  Indeed!  and  who  gave 
them  any  choice  in  the  matter  ?  Yesterday,  it  was 
General  Scott  who  would  not  abandon  the  flag 
which  he  had  illustrated  with  the  devotion  of  a  life 
time  ;  to-day,  it  is  General  Harney  or  Commodore 
Kearney  who  has  concluded  to  be  true  to  the  coun 
try  whose  livery  he  has  worn  and  whose  bread  he 
has  eaten  for  half  a  century ;  to-morrow,  it  will 
be  Ensign  Stebbins  who  has  been  magnanimous 
enough  not  to  throw  up  his  commission.  What  are 
we  to  make  of  the  extraordinary  confusion  of  ideas 
which  such  things  indicate?  In  what  other  coun 
try  would  it  be  considered  creditable  to  an  officer 
that  he  merely  did  not  turn  traitor  at  the  first  op 
portunity?  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  honor 
both  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  of  their  loyalty  to 
their  country.  They  will  do  their  duty,  if  we  do 
ours  in  saving  them  a  country  to  which  they  can 
be  loyal. 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  63 

We  have  been  so  long  habituated  to  a  kind  of 
local  independence  in  the  management  of  our  affairs, 
and  the  central  government  has  fortunately  had  so 
little  occasion  for  making  itself  felt  at  home  and  in 
the  domestic  concerns  of  the  States,  that  the  idea  of 
its  relation  to  us  as  a  power,  except  for  protection 
from  without,  has  gradually  become  vague  and 
alien  to  our  ordinary  habits  of  thought.  We  have 
so  long  heard  the  principle  admitted,  and  seen  it 
acted  on  with  advantage  to  the  general  weal,  that 
the  people  are  sovereign  in  their  own  affairs,  that 
we  must  recover  our  presence  of  mind  before  we 
see  the  fallacy  of  the  assumption,  that  the  people, 
or  a  bare  majority  of  them,  in  a  single  State,  can 
exercise  their  right  of  sovereignty  as  against  the 
will  of  the  nation  legitimately  expressed.  When 
such  a  contingency  arises,  it  is  for  a  moment  diffi 
cult  to  get  rid  of  our  habitual  associations,  and  to 
feel  that  we  are  not  a  mere  partnership,  dissolvable 
whether  by  mutual  consent  or  on  the  demand  of  one 
or  more  of  its  members,  but  a  nation,  which  can 
never  abdicate  its  right,  and  can  never  surrender  it 
while  virtue  enough  is  left  in  the  people  to  make 
it  worth  retaining.  It  would  seem  to  be  the  will 
of  God  that  from  time  to  time  the  manhood  of 
nations,  like  that  of  individuals,  should  be  tried  by 
great  dangers  or  by  great  opportunities.  If  the 
manhood  be  here,  it  makes  the  great  opportunity 
out  of  the  great  danger ;  if  it  be  not  there,  then 
the  great  danger  out  of  the  great  opportunity.  The 
occasion  is  offered  us  now  of  trying  whether  a  con 
scious  nationality  and  a  timely  concentration  of  the 


64  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

popular  will  for  its  maintenance  be  possible  in  a 
democracy,  or  whether  it  is  only  despotisms  that  are 
capable  of  the  sudden  and  selfish  energy  of  pro 
tecting  themselves  from  destruction. 

The  Kepublican  party  has  thus  far  borne  itself 
with  firmness  and  moderation,  and  the  great  body 
of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  Free  States  is 
gradually  being  forced  into  an  alliance  with  it. 
Let  us  not  be  misled  by  any  sophisms  about  con 
ciliation  and  compromise.  Discontented  citizens 
may  be  conciliated  and  compromised  with,  but 
never  open  rebels  with  arms  in  their  hands.  If 
there  be  any  concessions  which  justice  may  de 
mand  on  the  one  hand  and  honor  make  on  the 
other,  let  us  try  if  we  can  adjust  them  with  the 
Border  Slave  States ;  but  a  government  has  al 
ready  signed  its  own  death-warrant,  when  it  con 
sents  to  make  terms  with  law-breakers.  First  re 
establish  the  supremacy  of  order,  and  then  it  will 
be  time  to  discuss  terms ;  but  do  not  call  it  a  com 
promise,  when  you  give  up  your  purse  with  a  pistol 
at  your  head.  This  is  no  time  for  sentimentalisms 
about  the  empty  chair  at  the  national  hearth ;  all 
the  chairs  would  be  empty  soon  enough,  if  one  of 
the  children  is  to  amuse  itself  with  setting  the 
house  on  fire,  whenever  it  can  find  a  match.  Since 
the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  not  one  of  the  argu 
ments  has  lost  its  force,  not  a  cipher  of  the  sta 
tistics  has  been  proved  mistaken,  on  which  the 
judgment  of  the  people  was  made  up.  Nobody 
proposes,  or  has  proposed,  to  interfere  with  any 
existing  rights  of  property ;  the  majority  have  not 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  65 

assumed  to  decide  upon  any  question  of  the  right 
eousness  or  policy  of  certain  social  arrangements 
existing  in  any  part  of  the  Confederacy ;  they  have 
not  undertaken  to  constitute  themselves  the  con 
science  of  their  neighbors ;  they  have  simply  en 
deavored  to  do  their  duty  to  their  own  posterity, 
and  to  protect  them  from  a  system  which,  as  am 
ple  experience  has  shown,  and  that  of  our  present 
difficulty  were  enough  to  show,  fosters  a  sense  of 
irresponsibleness  to  all  obligation  in  the  governing 
class,  and  in  the  governed  an  ignorance  and  a 
prejudice  which  may  be  misled  at  any  moment 
to  the  peril  of  the  whole  country. 

But  the  present  question  is  one  altogether 
transcending  all  limits  of  party  and  all  theories 
of  party  policy.  It  is  a  question  of  national  ex 
istence  ;  it  is  a  question  whether  Americans  shall 
govern  America,  or  whether  a  disappointed  clique 
shall  nullify  all  government  now,  and  render  a  sta 
ble  government  difficult  hereafter ;  it  is  a  ques 
tion,  not  whether  we  shall  have  civil  war  under 
certain  contingencies,  but  whether  we  shall  prevent 
it  under  any.  It  is  idle,  and  worse  than  idle,  to 
talk  about  Central  Republics  that  can  never  be 
formed.  We  want  neither  Central  Republics  nor 
Northern  Republics,  but  our  own  Republic  and  that 
of  our  fathers,  destined  one  day  to  gather  the  whole 
continent  under  a  flag  that  shall  be  the  most  au 
gust  in  the  world.  Having  once  known  what  it  was 
to  be  members  of  a  grand  and  peaceful  constella 
tion,  we  shall  not  believe,  without  further  proof, 
that  the  laws  of  our  gravitation  are  to  be  abol- 


66  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

ished,  and  we  flung  forth  into  chaos,  a  hurlyburly 
of  jostling  and  splintering  stars,  whenever  Kobert 
Toombs  or  Kobert  Rhett,  or  any  other  Bob  of  the 
secession  kite,  may  give  a  flirt  of  self-importance. 
The  first  and  greatest  benefit  of  government  is 
that  it  keeps  the  peace,  that  it  insures  every  man 
his  right,  and  not  only  that,  but  the  permanence 
of  it.  In  order  to  this,  its  first  requisite  is  stabil 
ity  ;  and  this  once  firmly  settled,  the  greater  the 
extent  of  conterminous  territory  that  can  be  sub 
jected  to  one  system  and  one  language  and  in 
spired  by  one  patriotism,  the  better.  That  there 
should  be  some  diversity  of  interests  is  perhaps 
an  advantage,  since  the  necessity  of  legislating 
equitably  for  all  gives  legislation  its  needful 
safeguards  of  caution  and  largeness  of  view.  A 
single  empire  embracing  the  whole  world,  and 
controlling,  without  extinguishing,  local  organi 
zations  and  nationalities,  has  been  not  only  the 
dream  of  conquerors,  but  the  ideal  of  specula 
tive  philanthropists.  Our  own  dominion  is  of 
such  extent  and  power,  that  it  may,  so  far  as 
this  continent  is  concerned,  be  looked  upon  as 
something  like  an  approach  to  the  realization  of 
such  an  ideal.  But  for  slavery,  it  might  have 
succeeded  in  realizing  it;  and  in  spite  of  sla 
very,  it  may.  One  language,  one  law,  one  citizen 
ship  over  thousands  of  miles,  and  a  government 
on  the  whole  so  good  that  we  seem  to  have  for 
gotten  what  government  means,  —  these  are  things 
not  to  be  spoken  of  with  levity,  privileges  not  to 
be  surrendered  without  a  struggle.  And  yet  while 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  67 

Germany  and  Italy,  taught  by  the  bloody  and 
bitter  and  servile  experience  of  centuries,  are 
striving  toward  unity  as  the  blessing  above  all 
others  desirable,  we  are  to  allow  a  Union,  that 
for  almost  eighty  years  has  been  the  source  and 
the  safeguard  of  incalculable  advantages,  to  be 
shattered  by  the  caprice  of  a  rabble  that  has  out 
run  the  intention  of  its  leaders,  while  we  are  mak 
ing  up  our  minds  what  coercion  means !  Ask 
the  first  constable,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  it  is 
the  force  necessary  for  executing  the  laws.  To 
avoid  the  danger  of  what  men  who  have  seized 
upon  forts,  arsenals,  and  other  property  of  the 
United  States,  and  continue  to  hold  them  by 
military  force,  may  choose  to  call  civil  war,  we 
are  allowing  a  state  of  things  to  gather  head  which 
will  make  real  civil  war  the  occupation  of  the 
whole  country  for  years  to  come,  and  establish  it 
as  a  permanent  institution.  There  is  no  such  an 
tipathy  between  the  North  and  the  South  as  men 
ambitious  of  a  consideration  in  the  new  republic, 
which  their  talents  and  character  have  failed  to 
secure  them  in  the  old,  would  fain  call  into  ex 
istence  by  asserting  that  it  exists.  The  misunder 
standing  and  dislike  between  them  is  not  so  great 
as  they  were  within  living  memory  between  Eng 
land  and  Scotland,  as  they  are  now  between  Eng 
land  and  Ireland.  There  is  no  difference  of  race, 
language,  or  religion.  Yet,  after  a  dissatisfaction  of 
near  a  century  and  two  rebellions,  there  is  no 
part  of  the  British  dominion  more  loyal  than  Scot 
land,  no  British  subjects  who  would  be  more 


68  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

loath  to  part  with  the  substantial  advantages  of 
their  imperial  connection  than  the  Scotch ;  and 
even  in  Ireland,  after  a  longer  and  more  deadly 
feud,  there  is  no  sane  man  who  would  consent  to 
see  his  country  irrevocably  cut  off  from  power  and 
consideration  to  obtain  an  independence  which 
would  be  nothing  but  Donnybrook  Fair  multiplied 
by  every  city,  town,  and  village  in  the  island.  The 
same  considerations  of  policy  and  advantage  which 
render  the  union  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  with 
England  a  necessity  apply  with  even  more  force 
to  the  several  States  of  our  Union.  To  let  one, 
or  two,  or  half  a  dozen  of  them  break  away  in 
a  freak  of  anger  or  unjust  suspicion,  or,  still  worse, 
from  mistaken  notions  of  sectional  advantage, 
would  be  to  fail  in  our  duty  to  ourselves  and  our 
our  country,  would  be  a  fatal  blindness  to  the 
lessons  which  immemorial  history  has  been  tra 
cing  on  the  earth's  surface,  either  with  the  ben 
eficent  furrow  of  the  plough,  or,  when  that  was 
unheeded,  the  fruitless  gash  of  the  cannon  ball. 

When  we  speak  of  coercion,  we  do  not  mean 
violence,  but  only  the  assertion  of  constituted  and 
acknowledged  authority.  Even  if  seceding  States 
could  be  conquered  back  again,  they  would  not 
be  worth  the  conquest.  We  ask  only  for  the  as 
sertion  of  a  principle  which  shall  give  the  friends 
of  order  in  the  discontented  quarters  a  hope  to 
rally  round,  and  the  assurance  of  the  support  they 
have  a  right  to  expect.  There  is  probably  a  ma 
jority,  and  certainly  a  powerful  minority,  in  the 
seceding  States,  who  are .  loyal  to  the  Union  ;  and 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  69 

these  should  have  that  support  which  the  pres 
tige  of  the  General  Government  can  alone  give 
them.  It  is  not  to  the  North  nor  to  the  Repub 
lican  party  that  the  malcontents  are  called  on 
to  submit,  but  to  the  laws  and  to  the  benign  in 
tentions  of  the  Constitution,  as  they  were  under 
stood  by  its  framers.  What  the  country  wants  is 
a  permanent  settlement;  and  it  has  learned,  by 
repeated  trial,  that  compromise  is  not  a  cement, 
but  a  wedge.  The  Government  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  protect  the  doubtful  right  of  property  of 
a  Virginian  in  Anthony  Burns  by  the  exercise 
of  coercion,  and  the  loyalty  of  Massachusetts  was 
such  that  her  own  militia  could  be  used  to  en 
force  an  obligation  abhorrent,  and,  as  there  is 
reason  to  believe,  made  purposely  abhorrent,  to 
her  dearest  convictions  and  most  venerable  tradi 
tions  ;  and  yet  the  same  Government  tampers  with 
armed  treason,  and  lets  /  dare  not  wait  upon  / 
would,  when  it  is  a  question  of  protecting  the  ac 
knowledged  property  of  the  Union,  and  of  sus 
taining,  nay,  preserving  even,  a  gallant  officer 
whose  only  fault  is  that  he  has  been  too  true  to 
his  flag.  While  we  write,  the  newspapers  bring 
us  the  correspondence  between  Mr.  Buchanan 
and  the  South  Carolina  "  Commissioners ; "  and 
surely  never  did  a  government  stoop  so  low  as 
ours  has  done,  not  only  in  consenting  to  receive 
these  ambassadors  from  Nowhere,  but  in  suggest 
ing  that  a  soldier  deserves  court-martial  who  has 
done  all  he  could  to  maintain  himself  in  a  for 
lorn  hope,  with  rebellion  in  his  front  and  trea- 


70  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

chery  in  his  rear.  Our  Revolutionary  heroes  had 
old-fashioned  notions  about  rebels,  suitable  to  the 
straightforward  times  in  which  they  lived,  —  times 
when  blood  was  as  freely  shed  to  secure  our  na 
tional  existence  as  milk-and-water  is  now  to  de 
stroy  it.  Mr.  Buchanan  might  have  profited  by 
the  example  of  men  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
modern  arts  of  Constitutional  interpretation,  but 
saw  clearly  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong.  When  a  party  of  the  Shays  rebels  came 
to  the  house  of  General  Pomeroy,  in  Northamp 
ton,  and  asked  if  he  could  accommodate  them,  — 
the  old  soldier,  seeing  the  green  sprigs  in  their 
hats,  the  badges  of  their  treason,  shouted  to  his 
son,  "  Fetch  me  my  hanger,  and  I  '11  accommo 
date  the  scoundrels !  "  General  Jackson,  we  sus 
pect,  would  have  accommodated  rebel  commis 
sioners  in  the  same  peremptory  style. 

While  our  Government,  like  Giles  in  the  old 
rhyme,  is  wondering  whether  it  is  a  government  or 
not,  emissaries  of  treason  are  cunningly  working 
upon  the  fears  and  passions  of  the  Border  States, 
whose  true  interests  are  infinitely  more  on  the  side 
of  the  Union  than  of  slavery.  They  are  luring 
the  ambitious  with  visionary  promises  of  Southern 
grandeur  and  prosperity,  and  deceiving  the  igno 
rant  into  the  belief  that  the  principles  and  practice 
of  the  Free  States  were  truly  represented  by  John 
Brown.  All  this  might  have  been  prevented,  had 
Mr.  Buchanan  in  his  Message  thought  of  the  inter 
ests  of  his  country  instead  of  those  of  his  party. 
It  is  not  too  late  to  check  and  neutralize  it  now. 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  71 

A  decisively  national  and  patriotic  policy  is  all 
that  can  prevent  excited  men  from  involving  them 
selves  so  deeply  that  they  will  find  "  returning  as 
tedious  as  go  o'er,"  and  be  more  afraid  of  coward 
ice  than  of  consequences. 

Slavery  is  no  longer  the  matter  in  debate,  and 
we  must  beware  of  being  led  off  upon  that  side- 
issue.  The  matter  now  in  hand  is  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  order,  the  reaffirmation  of  national  unity, 
and  the  settling  once  for  all  whether  there  can  be 
such  a  thing  as  a  government  without  the  right 
to  use  its  power  in  self-defence.  The  Republican 
party  has  done  all  it  could  lawfully  do  in  limiting 
slavery  once  more  to  the  States  in  which  it  exists, 
and  in  relieving  the  Free  States  from  forced  com 
plicity  with  an  odious  system.  They  can  be  pa 
tient,  as  Providence  is  often  patient,  till  natural 
causes  work  that  conviction  which  conscience  has 
been  unable  to  effect.  They  believe  that  the  vio 
lent  abolition  of  slavery,  which  would  be  sure  to 
follow  sooner  or  later  the  disruption  of  our  Con 
federacy,  would  not  compensate  for  the  evil  that 
would  be  entailed  upon  both  races  by  the  abolition 
of  our  nationality  and  the  bloody  confusion  that 
would  follow  it.  More  than  this,  they  believe  that 
there  can  be  no  permanent  settlement  except  in  the 
definite  establishment  of  the  principle,  that  this 
Government,  like  all  others,  rests  upon  the  everlast 
ing  foundations  of  just  Authority,  —  that  that  au 
thority,  once  delegated  by  the  people,  becomes  a 
common  stock  of  Power  to  be  wielded  for  the  com 
mon  protection,  and  from  which  no  minority  or 


72  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

majority  of  partners  can  withdraw  its  contribution 
under  any  conditions,  —  that  this  power  is  what 
makes  us  a  nation,  and  implies  a  corresponding  duty 
of  submission,  or,  if  that  be  refused,  then  a  necessary 
right  of  self-vindication.  We  are  citizens,  when  we 
make  laws ;  we  become  subjects,  when  we  attempt 
to  break  them  after  they  are  made.  Lynch-law 
maybe  better  than  no  law  in  new  and  half -organized 
communities,  but  we  cannot  tolerate  its  application 
in  the  affairs  of  government.  The  necessity  of  sup 
pressing  rebellion  by  force  may  be  a  terrible  one, 
but  its  consequences,  whatever  they  may  be,  do  not 
weigh  a  feather  in  comparison  with  those  that 
would  follow  from  admitting  the  principle  that 
there  is  no  social  compact  binding  on  any  body  of 
men  too  numerous  to  be  arrested  by  a  United 
States  marshal. 

As  we  are  writing  these  sentences,  the  news 
comes  to  us  that  South  Carolina  has  taken  the  in 
itiative,  and  chosen  the  arbitrament  of  war.  She 
has  done  it  because  her  position  was  desperate,  and 
because  she  hoped  thereby  to  unite  the  Cotton 
States  by  a  complicity  in  blood,  as  they  are  already 
committed  by  a  unanimity  in  bravado.  Major 
Anderson  deserves  more  than  ever  the  thanks  of 
his  country  for  his  wise  forbearance.  The  foxes 
in  Charleston,  who  have  already  lost  their  tails  in 
the  trap  of  Secession,  wished  to  throw  upon  him 
the  responsibility  of  that  second  blow  which  begins 
a  quarrel,  and  the  silence  of  his  guns  has  balked 
them.  Nothing  would  have  pleased  them  so  much 
as  to  have  one  of  his  thirty-two-pound  shot  give  a 


E  PLURIBUS   UNUM.  73 

'taste  of  real  war  to  the  boys  who  are  playing  sol 
dier  at  Morris's  Island.  But  he  has  shown  the 
discretion  of  a  brave  man.  South  Carolina  will 
soon  learn  how  much  she  has  undervalued  the  peo 
ple  of  the  Free  States.  Because  they  prefer  law 
to  bowie-knives  and  revolvers,  she  has  too  lightly 
reckoned  on  their  caution  and  timidity.  She  will 
find  that,  though  slow  to  kindle,  they  are  as  slow 
to  yield,  and  that  they  are  willing  to  risk  their 
lives  for  the  defence  of  law,  though  not  for  the 
breach  of  it.  They  are  beginning  to  question  the 
value  of  a  peace  that  is  forced  on  them  at  the  point 
of  the  bayonet,  and  is  to  be  obtained  only  by  an 
abandonment  of  rights  and  duties. 

When  we  speak  of  the  courage  and  power  of  the 
Free  States,  we  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as 
descending  to  the  vulgar  level  of  meeting  brag 
with  brag.  We  speak  of  them  only  as  among  the 
elements  to  be  gravely  considered  by  the  fanatics 
who  may  render  it  necessary  for  those  who  value 
the  continued  existence  of  this  Confederacy  as  it 
deserves  to  be  valued  to  kindle  a  back-fire,  and  to 
use  the  desperate  means  which  God  has  put  into 
their  hands  to  be  employed  in  the  last  extremity  of 
free  institutions.  And  when  we  use  the  term  co 
ercion,  nothing  is  farther  from  our  thoughts  than 
the  carrying  of  blood  and  fire  among  those  whom 
we  still  consider  our  brethren  of  South  Carolina. 
These  civilized  communities  of  ours  have  interests 
too  serious  to  be  risked  on  a  childish  wager  of 
courage,  —  a  quality  that  can  always  be  bought 
cheaper  than  day-labor  on  a  railway-embankment. 


74  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

We  wish  to  see  the  Government  strong  enough  for 
the  maintenance  of  law,  and  for  the  protection,  if 
need  be,  of  the  unfortunate  Governor  Pickens 
from  the  anarchy  he  has  allowed  himself  to  be 
made  a  tool  of  by  evoking.  Let  the  power  of  the 
Union  be  used  for  any  other  purpose  than  that  of 
shutting  and  barring  the  door  against  the  return 
of  misguided  men  to  their  allegiance.  At  the  same 
time  we  think  legitimate  and  responsible  force 
prudently  exerted  safer  than  the  submission,  with 
out  a  struggle,  to  unlawful  and  irresponsible  vio 
lence. 

Peace  is  the  greatest  of  blessings,  when  it  is  won 
and  kept  by  manhood  and  wisdom  ;  but  it  is  a 
blessing  that  will  not  long  be  the  housemate  of 
cowardice.  It  is  God  alone  who  is  powerful 
enough  to  let  His  authority  slumber  ;  it  is  only  His 
laws  that  are  strong  enough  to  protect  and  avenge 
themselves.  Every  human  government  is  bound 
to  make  its  laws  so  far  resemble  His  that  they 
shall  be  uniform,  certain,  and  unquestionable  in 
their  operation ;  and  this  it  can  do  only  by  a  timely 
show  of  power,  and  by  an  appeal  to  that  authority 
which  is  of  divine  right,  inasmuch  as  its  office  is  to 
maintain  that  order  which  is  the  single  attribute  of 
the  Infinite  Reason  that  we  can  clearly  apprehend 
and  of  which  we  have  hourly  example. 


THE    PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S 
EEBELLION. 

1861. 

HAD  any  one  ventured  to  prophesy  on  the  Fourth 
of  March  that  .the  immediate  prospect  of  Civil 
War  would  be  hailed  by  the  people  of  the  Free 
States  with  a  unanimous  shout  of  enthusiasm,  he 
would  have  been  thought  a  madman.  Yet  the 
prophecy  would  have  been  verified  by  what  we  now 
see  and  hear  in  every  city,  town,  and  hamlet  from 
Maine  to  Kansas.  With  the  advantage  of  three 
months'  active  connivance  in  the  cabinet  of  Mr. 
Buchanan,  with  an  empty  treasury  at  Washington, 
and  that  reluctance  to  assume  responsibility  and  to 
inaugurate  a  decided  policy,  the  common  vice  of 
our  politicians,  who  endeavor  to  divine  and  to 
follow  popular  sentiment  rather  than  to  lead  it,  it 
seemed  as  if  Disunion  were  inevitable,  and  the 
only  open  question  were  the  line  of  separation.  So 
assured  seemed  the  event  that  English  journalists 
moralized  gravely  on  the  inherent  weakness  of 
Democracy.  While  the  leaders  of  the  Southern 
Eebellion  did  not  dare  to  expose  their  treason 
to  the  risk  of  a  popular  vote  in  any  one  of  the 
seceding  States,  The  Saturday  Review,  one  of 
the  ablest  of  British  journals,  solemnly  warned  its 


76  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

countrymen  to  learn  by  our  example  the  dangers 
of  an  extended  suffrage. 

Meanwhile,  the  conduct  of  the  people  of  the 
Free  States,  during  all  these  trying  and  perilous 
months,  had  proved,  if  it  proved  anything,  the 
essential  conservatism  of  a  population  in  which 
every  grown  man  has  a  direct  interest  in  the  sta 
bility  of  the  national  government.  So  abstinent 
are  they  by  habit  and  principle  from  any  abnormal 
intervention  with  the  machine  of  administration, 
so  almost  superstitious  in  adherence  to  constitutional 
forms,  as  to  be  for  a  moment  staggered  by  the  claim 
to  a  right  of  secession  set  up  by  all  the  Cotton 
States,  admitted  by  the  Border  Slave  States,  which 
had  the  effrontery  to  deliberate  between  their  plain 
allegiance  and  their  supposed  interest,  and  but 
feebly  denied  by  the  Administration  then  in  power. 
The  usual  panacea  of  palaver  was  tried ;  Congress 
did  its  best  to  add  to  the  general  confusion  of 
thought ;  and,  as  if  that  were  not  enough,  a  Con 
vention  of  Notables  was  called  simultaneously  to 
thresh  the  straw  of  debate  anew,  and  to  convince 
thoughtful  persons  that  men  do  not  grow  wiser  as 
they  grow  older.  So  in  the  two  Congresses  the 
notables  talked,  —  in  the  one  those  who  ought  to 
be  shelved,  in  the  other  those  who  were  shelved 
already,  —  while  those  who  were  too  thoroughly 
shelved  for  a  seat  in  either  addressed  Great  Union 
Meetings  at  home.  Not  a  man  of  them  but  had  a 
compromise  in  his  pocket,  adhesive  as  Spalding's 
glue,  warranted  to  stick  the  shattered  Confederacy 
together  so  firmly  that,  if  it  ever  broke  again,  it 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S-REBELLION.      11 

must  be  in  a  new  place,  which  was  a  great  con 
solation.  If  these  gentlemen  gave  nothing  very 
valuable  to  the  people  of  the  Free  States,  they 
were  giving  the  Secessionists  what  was  of  inesti 
mable  value  to  them,  —  Time.  The  latter  went  on 
seizing  forts,  navy-yards,  and  deposits  of  Federal 
money,  erecting  batteries,  and  raising  and  arming 
men  at  their  leisure ;  above  all,  they  acquired  a 
prestige,  and  accustomed  men's  minds  to  the  thought 
of  disunion,  not  only  as  possible,  but  actual.  They 
began  to  grow  insolent,  and,  while  compelling 
absolute  submission  to  their  rebellious  usurpation 
at  home,  decried  any  exercise  of  legitimate  autho 
rity  on  the  part  of  the  General  Government  as 
Coercion,  —  a  new  term,  by  which  it  was  sought 
to  be  established  as  a  principle  of  constitutional 
law,  that  it  is  always  the  Northern  bull  that  has 
gored  the  Southern  ox. 

During  all  this  time,  the  Border  Slave  States, 
and  especially  Virginia,  were  playing  a  part  at 
once  cowardly  and  selfish.  They  assumed  the  right 
to  stand  neutral  between  the  government  and  re 
bellion,  to  contract  a  kind  of  morganatic  marriage 
with  Treason,  by  which  they  could  enjoy  the  plea 
sant  sin  without  the  tedious  responsibility,  and  to 
be  traitors  in  everything  but  the  vulgar  contingency 
of  hemp.  Doubtless  the  aim  of  the  political  man 
agers  in  these  States  was  to  keep  the  North  amused 
with  schemes  of  arbitration,  reconstruction,  and 
whatever  other  fine  words  would  serve  the  purpose 
of  hiding  the  real  issue,  till  the  new  government 
of  Secessia  should  have  so  far  consolidated  itself 


78  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

as  to  be  able  to  demand  with  some  show  of  reason 
a  recognition  from  foreign  powers,  and  to  render 
it  politic  for  the  United  States  to  consent  to  peace 
able  separation.  They  counted  on  the  self-interest 
of  England  arid  the  supineness  of  the  North.  As 
to  the  former,  they  were  not  wholly  without  justi 
fication, —  for  nearly  all  the  English  discussions 
of  the  "American  Crisis"  which  we  have  seen 
have  shown  far  more  of  the  shop-keeping  spirit 
than  of  interest  in  the  maintenance  of  free  institu 
tions  ;  but  in  regard  to  the  latter  they  made  the 
fatal  mistake  of  believing  our  Buchanans,  Gush- 
ings,  and  Touceys  to  be  representative  men.  They 
were  not  aware  how  utterly  the  Democratic  party 
had  divorced  itself  from  the  moral  sense  of  the 
Free  States,  nor  had  they  any  conception  of  the 
tremendous  recoil  of  which  the  long-repressed  con 
victions,  traditions,  and  instincts  of  a  people  are 
capable. 

Never  was  a  nation  so  in  want  of  a  leader; 
never  was1  it  more  plain  that,  without  a  head,  the 
people  "bluster  abroad  as  beasts,"  with  plenty  of 
the  iron  of  purpose,  but  purpose  without  cohe 
rence,  and  with  no  cunning  smith  of  circumstance 
to  edge  it  with  plan  and  helve  it  with  direction. 
What  the  country  was  waiting  for  showed  itself 
in  the  universal  thrill  of  satisfaction  when  Major 
Anderson  took  the  extraordinary  responsibility  of 
doing  his  duty.  But  such  was  the  general  uncer 
tainty,  so  doubtful  seemed  the  loyalty  of  the 
Democratic  party  as  represented  by  its  spokesmen 
at  the  North,  so  irresolute  was  the  tone  of  many 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S  REBELLION.      79 

Kepublican  leaders  and  journals,  that  a  powerful 
and  wealthy  community  of  twenty  millions  of 
people  gave  a  sigh  of  relief  when  they  had  been 
permitted  to  install  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  their 
choice  in  their  own  National  Capital.  Even  after 
the  inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  it  was  confidently 
announced  that  Jefferson  Davis,  the  Burr  of  the 
Southern  conspiracy,  would  be  in  Washington  be 
fore  the  month  was  out ;  and  so  great  was  the 
Northern  despondency  that  the  chances  of  such 
an  event  were  seriously  discussed.  While  the 
nation  was  falling  to  pieces,  there  were  newspapers 
and  "  distinguished  statesmen "  of  the  party  so 
lately  and  so  long  in  power  base  enough  to  be 
willing  to  make  political  capital  out  of  the  common 
danger,  and  to  lose  their  country,  if  they  could  only 
find  their  profit.  There  was  even  one  man  found  in 
Massachusetts,  who,  measuring  the  moral  standard 
of  his  party  by  his  own,  had  the  unhappy  audacity 
to  declare  publicly  that  there  were  friends  enough 
of  the  South  in  his  native  State  to  prevent  the 
march  of  any  troops  thence  to  sustain  that  Consti 
tution  to  which  he  had  sworn  fealty  in  Heaven 
knows  how  many  offices,  the  rewards  of  almost  as 
many  turnings  of  his  political  coat.  There  was 
one  journal  in  New  York  which  had  the  insolence 
to  speak  of  President  Davis  and  Mister  Lincoln 
in  the  same  paragraph.  No  wonder  the  "dirt- 
eaters  "  of  the  Carolinas  could  be  taught  to  despise 
a  race  among  whom  creatures  might  be  found  to 
do  that  by  choice  which  they  themselves  were 
driven  to  do  by  misery. 


80  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Thus  far  the  Secessionists  had  the  game  all  their 
own  way,  for  their  dice  were  loaded  with  Northern 
lead.  They  framed  their  sham  constitution,  ap 
pointed  themselves  to  their  sham  offices,  issued 
their  sham  commissions,  endeavored  to  bribe  Eng 
land  with  a  sham  offer  of  low  duties  and  Virginia 
with  a  sham  prohibition  of  the  slave-trade,  adver 
tised  their  proposals  for  a  sham  loan  which  was  to 
be  taken  up  under  intimidation,  and  levied  real 
taxes  on  the  people  in  the  name  of  the  people  whom 
they  had  never  allowed  to  vote  directly  on  their 
enormous  swindle.  With  money  stolen  from  the 
Government,  they  raised  troops  whom  they  equipped 
with  stolen  arms,  and  beleaguered  national  for 
tresses  with  cannon  stolen  from  national  arsenals. 
They  sent  out  secret  agents  to  Europe,  they  had 
their  secret  allies  in  the  Free  States,  their  con 
ventions  transacted  all  important  business  in  secret 
session  ;  —  there  was  but  one  exception  to  the 
shrinking  delicacy  becoming  a  maiden  government, 
and  that  was  the  openness  of  the  stealing.  We 
had  always  thought  a  high  sense  of  personal  honor 
an  essential  element  of  chivalry ;  but  among  the 
Romanic  races,  by  which,  as  the  wonderful  ethnol 
ogist  of  De  Bow's  Review  tells  us,  the  Southern 
States  where  settled,  and  from  which  they  derive  a 
close  entail  of  chivalric  characteristics,  to  the  ex 
clusion  of  the  vulgar  Saxons  of  the  North,  such  is 
by  no  means  the  case.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
tory  the  deliberate  treachery  of  a  general  is  deemed 
worthy  of  a  civic  ovation,  and  Virginia  has  the 
honor  of  being  the  first  State  claiming  to  be  civil- 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S  REBELLION.     81 

ized  that  has  decreed  the  honors  of  a  triumph  to  a 
cabinet  officer  who  had  contrived  to  gild  a  treason 
that  did  not  endanger  his  life  with  a  peculation 
that  could  not  further  damage  his  reputation.  Re 
bellion,  even  in  a  bad  cause,  may  have  its  romantic 
side  ;  treason,  which  had  not  been  such  but  for 
being  011  the  losing  side,  may  challenge  admiration ; 
but  nothing  can  sweeten  larceny  or  disinfect  per 
jury.  A  rebellion  inaugurated  with  theft,  and 
which  has  effected  its  entry  into  national  fortresses, 
not  over  broken  walls,  but  by  breaches  of  trust, 
should  take  Jonathan  Wild  for  its  patron  saint, 
with  the  run  of  Mr.  Buchanan's  cabinet  for  a  choice 
of  sponsors,  —  godfathers  we  should  not  dare  to 
call  them. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Inaugural  Speech  was  of  the 
kind  usually  called  "  firm,  but  conciliatory,"  —  a 
policy  doubtful  in  troublous  times,  since  it  com 
monly  argues  weakness,  and  more  than  doubtful  in 
a  crisis  like  ours,  since  it  left  the  course  which  the 
Administration  meant  to  take  ambiguous,  and, 
while  it  weakened  the  Government  by  exciting  the 
distrust  of  all  who  wished  for  vigorous  measures, 
really  strengthened  the  enemy  by  encouraging  the 
conspirators  in  the  Border  States.  There  might 
be  a  question  as  to  whether  this  or  that  attitude 
were  expedient  for  the  Republican  party ;  there 
could  be  none  as  to  the  only  safe  and  dignified  one 
for  the  Government  of  the  Nation.  Treason  was 
as  much  treason  in  the  beginning  of  March  as  in 
the  middle  of  April ;  and  it  seems  certain  now,  as 
it  seemed  probable  to  many  then,  that  the  country 


82  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

would  have  sooner  rallied  to  the  support  of  the 
Government,  if  the  Government  had  shown  an 
earlier  confidence  in  the  loyalty  of  the  people. 
Though  the  President  talked  of  "  repossessing " 
the  stolen  forts,  arsenals,  and  custom-houses,  yet 
close  upon  this  declaration  followed  the  dishearten 
ing  intelligence  that  the  cabinet  were  discussing 
the  propriety  of  evacuating  not  only  Fort  Sumter, 
which  was  of  no  strategic  importance,  but  Fort 
Pickens,  which  was  the  key  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  to  abandon  which  was  almost  to  acknowledge 
the  independence  of  the  Rebel  States.  Thus  far 
the  Free  States  had  waited  with  commendable 
patience  for  some  symptom  of  vitality  in  the  new 
Administration,  something  that  should  distinguish 
it  from  the  piteous  helplessness  of  its  predecessor. 
But  now  their  pride  was  too  deeply  outraged  for 
endurance;  indignant  remonstrances  were  heard 
from  all  quarters,  and  the  Government  seemed  for 
the  first  time  fairly  to  comprehend  that  it  had 
twenty  millions  of  freemen  at  its  back,  and  that 
forts  might  be  taken  and  held  by  honest  men  as 
well  as  by  knaves  and  traitors.  The  nettle  had 
been  stroked  long  enough ;  it  was  time  to  try  a  firm 
grip.  Still  the  Administration  seemed  inclined  to 
temporize,  so  thoroughly  was  it  possessed  by  the 
notion  of  conciliating  the  Border  States.  In  point 
of  fact,  the  side  which  those  States  might  take  in 
the  struggle  between  Law  and  Anarchy  was  of 
vastly  more  import  to  them  than  to  us.  They 
could  bring  no  considerable  reinforcement  of 
money,  credit,  or  arms  to  the  rebels ;  they  could  at 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S  REBELLION.     83 

best  but  add  so  many  mouths  to  an  army  whose 
commissariat  was  already  dangerously  embarrassed. 
They  could  not  even,  except  temporarily,  keep  the 
war  away  from  the  territory  of  the  seceding  States, 
every  one  of  which  had  a  sea-door  open  to  the 
invasion  of  an  enemy  who  controlled  the  entire 
navy  and  shipping  of  the  country.  The  position 
assumed  by  Eastern  Virginia  and  Maryland  was 
of  consequence  only  so  far  as  it  might  facilitate 
a  sudden  raid  on  Washington,  and  the  policy  of 
both  these  States  was  to  amuse  the  Government 
by  imaginary  negotiations  till  the  plans  of  the  con 
spirators  were  ripe.  In  both  States  men  were 
actively  recruited  and  enrolled  to  assist  in  attack 
ing  the  capital.  With  them,  as  with  the  more 
openly  rebellious  States,  the  new  theory  of  "  Coer 
cion  "  was  ingeniously  arranged  like  a  valve,  yield 
ing  at  the  slightest  impulse  to  the  passage  of  forces 
for  the  subversion  of  legitimate  authority,  closing 
imperviously,  so  that  no  drop  of  power  could  ooze 
through  in  the  opposite  direction.  Lord  De  Roos, 
long  suspected  of  cheating  at  cards,  would  never 
have  been  convicted  but  for  the  resolution  of  an 
adversary,  who,  pinning  his  hand  to  the  table  with 
a  fork,  said  to  him  blandly,  "  My  Lord,  if  the  ace 
of  spades  is  not  under  your  Lordship's  hand,  why, 
then,  I  beg  your  pardon  !  "  It  seems  to  us  that  a 
timely  treatment  of  Governor  Letcher  in  the  same 
energetic  way  would  have  saved  the  disasters  of 
Harper's  Ferry  and  Norfolk,  —  for  disasters  they 
were,  though  six  months  of  temporizing  had  so 
lowered  the  public  sense  of  what  was  due  to  the 


84  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

national  dignity  that  people  were  glad  to  see  the 
Government  active  at  length,  even  if  only  in  set 
ting  fire  to  its  own  house. 

We  are  by  no  means  inclined  to  criticise  the 
Administration,  even  if  this  were  the  proper  time 
for  it ;  but  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  there  was 
great  wisdom  in  Napoleon's  recipe  for  saving  life 
in  dealing  with  a  mob,  — "  First  fire  grape-shot 
into  them  ;  after  that,  over  their  heads  as  much  as 
you  like."  The  position  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  al 
ready  embarrassed  when  he  entered  upon  office,  by 
what  we  believe  to  have  been  a  political  blunder  in 
the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party.  Instead  of 
keeping  closely  to  the  real  point,  and  the  only 
point,  at  issue,  namely,  the  claim  of  a  minority  to  a 
right  of  rebellion  when  displeased  with  the  result 
of  an  election,  the  bare  question  of  Secession, 
pure  and  simple,  they  allowed  their  party  to  be 
come  divided,  and  to  waste  themselves  in  discussing 
terms  of  compromise  and  guaranties  of  slavery 
which  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  business  in  hand. 
Unless  they  were  ready  to  admit  that  popular  gov 
ernment  was  at  an  end,  those  were  matters  already 
settled  by  the  Constitution  and  the  last  election. 
Compromise  was  out  of  the  question  with  men  who 
had  gone  through  the  motions,  at  least,  of  estab 
lishing  a  government  and  electing  an  anti-presi 
dent.  The  way  to  insure  the  loyalty  of  the  Border 
States,  as  the  event  has  shown,  was  to  convince 
them  that  disloyalty  was  dangerous.  That  revolu 
tions  never  go  backward  is  one  of  those  compact 
generalizations  which  the  world  is  so  ready  to 


((UNIVERSITY)} 

PICKENS-AND-STEALIJSTS  REBELLION.     85 

accept  because  they  save  the  trouble  of  thinking ; 
but,  however  it  may  be  with  revolutions,  it  is 
certain  that  rebellions  most  commonly  go  backward 
with  disastrous  rapidity,  and  it  was  of  the  gravest 
moment,  as  respected  its  moral  influence,  that 
Secession  should  not  have  time  allowed  it  to  as 
sume  the  proportions  and  the  dignity  of  revolu 
tion  ;  in  other  words,  of  a  rebellion  too  powerful  to 
be  crushed.  The  secret  friends  of  the  secession 
treason  in  the  Free  States  have  done  their  best  to 
bewilder  the  public  mind  and  to  give  factitious 
prestige  to  a  conspiracy  against  free  government 
and  civilization  by  talking  about  the  right  of  revo 
lution,  as  if  it  were  some  acknowledged  principle 
of  the  Law  of  Nations.  There  is  a  right  and 
sometimes  a  duty  of  rebellion,  as  there  is  also  a 
right  and  sometimes  a  duty  of  hanging  men  for  it ; 
but  rebellion  continues  to  be  rebellion  until  it  has 
accomplished  its  object  and  secured  the  acknow 
ledgment  of  it  from  the  other  party  to  the  quarrel, 
and  from  the  world  at  large.  The  Republican 
Party  in  the  November  elections  had  really  effected 
a  peaceful  revolution,  had  emancipated  the  country 
from  the  tyranny  of  an  oligarchy  which  had  abused 
the  functions  of  the  Government  almost  from  the 
time  of  its  establishment,  to  the  advancement  of 
their  own  selfish  aims  and  interests;  and  it  was 
this  legitimate  change  of  rulers  and  of  national 
policy  by  constitutional  means  which  the  Seces 
sionists  intended  to  prevent.  To  put  the  matter 
in  plain  English,  they  resolved  to  treat  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  in  the  exercise  of  their  un- 


86  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

doubted  and  lawful  authority,  as  rebels,  and  re 
sorted  to  their  usual  policy  of  intimidation  in  order 
to  subdue  them.  Either  this  magnificent  empire 
should  be  their  plantation,  or  it  should  perish. 
This  was  the  view  even  of  what  were  called  the 
moderate  slaveholders  of  the  Border  States;  and 
all  the  so-called  compromises  and  plans  of  recon 
struction  that  were  thrown  into  the  caldron  where 
the  hell-broth  of  anarchy  was  brewing  had  this 
extent,  no  more,  —  What  terms  of  submission 
would  the  people  make  with  their  natural  masters  ? 
Whatever  other  result  may  have  come  of  the  long 
debates  in  Congress  and  elsewhere,  they  have  at 
least  convinced  the  people  of  the  Free  States  that 
there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  moderate  slave 
holder,  —  that  moderation  and  slavery  can  no  more 
coexist  than  Floyd  and  honesty,  or  Anderson  and 
treason. 

We  believe,  then,  that  conciliation  was  from  the 
first  impossible,  —  that  to  attempt  it  was  unwise, 
because  it  put  the  party  of  law  and  loyalty  in  the 
wrong,  —  and  that,  if  it  was  done  as  a  mere  matter 
of  policy  in  order  to  gain  time,  it  was  a  still 
greater  mistake,  because  it  was  the  rebels  only  who 
could  profit  by  it  in  consolidating  their  organiza 
tion,  while  the  seeming  gain  of  a  few  days  or  weeks 
was  a  loss  to  the  Government,  whose  great  advan 
tage  was  in  an  administrative  system  thoroughly 
established,  and,  above  all,  in  the  vast  power  of 
the  national  idea,  a  power  weakened  by  every  day's 
delay.  This  is  so  true  that  already  men  began  to 
talk  of  the  rival  governments  at  Montgomery  and 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S  REBELLION.     87 

Washington,  and  Canadian  journals  to  recommend 
a  strict  neutrality,  as  if  the  independence  and  legi 
timacy  of  the  mushroom  despotism  of  New  Ashan- 
tee  were  an  acknowledged  fact,  and  the  name  of  the 
United  States  of  America  had  no  more  authority 
than  that  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  Company,  dealers 
in  all  kinds  of  repudiation  and  anarchy.  For  more 
than  a  month  after  the  inauguration  of  President 
Lincoln  there  seemed  to  be  a  kind  of  interregnum, 
during  which  the  confusion  of  ideas  in  the  Border 
States  as  to  their  rights  and  duties  as  members  of 
the  "  old  "  Union,  as  it  began  to  be  called,  became 
positively  chaotic.  Virginia,  still  professing  neu 
trality,  prepared  to  seize  the  arsenal  at  Harper's 
Ferry  and  the  navy-yard  at  Norfolk ;  she  would 
prevent  the  passage  of  the  United  States'  forces 
"  with  a  serried  phalanx  of  her  gallant  sons,"  two 
regiments  of  whom  stood  looking  on  while  a  file  of 
marines  took  seven  wounded  men  in  an  engine- 
house  for  them ;  she  would  do  everything  but  her 
duty,  —  the  gallant  Ancient  Pistol  of  a  common 
wealth.  She  "  resumed  her  sovereignty,"  whatever 
that  meant ;  her  Convention  passed  an  ordinance 
of  secession,  concluded  a  league  offensive  and  de 
fensive  with  the  rebel  Confederacy,  appointed  Jef 
ferson  Davis  command er-in-chief  of  her  land-forces 
and  somebody  else  of  the  fleet  she  meant  to  steal 
at  Norfolk,  and  then  coolly  referred  the  whole 
matter  back  to  the  people  to  vote  three  weeks 
afterwards  whether  they  would  secede  three  weeks 
before.  Wherever  the  doctrine  of  Secession  has 
penetrated,  it  seems  to  have  obliterated  every  no 
tion  of  law  and  precedent. 


88  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

The  country  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  cabinet  were  mainly  employed 
in  packing  their  trunks  to  leave  Washington,  when 
the  "  venerable  Edward  Kuffin  of  Virginia  "  fired 
that  first  gun  at  Fort  Sumter  which  brought  all 
the  Free  States  to  their  feet  as  one  man.  That 
shot  is  destined  to  be  the  most  memorable  one  ever 
fired  on  this  continent  since  the  Concord  fowling- 
pieces  said,  "  That  bridge  is  ours,  and  we  mean  to 
go  across  it,"  eighty-seven  Aprils  ago.  As  these 
began  a  conflict  which  gave  us  independence,  so 
that  began  another  which  is  to  give  us  nationality. 
It  was  certainly  a  great  piece  of  good-luck  for  the 
Government  that  they  had  a  fort  which  it  was  so 
profitable  to  lose.  The  people  were  weary  of  a 
masterly  inactivity  which  seemed  to  consist  mainly 
in  submitting  to  be  kicked.  We  know  very  well 
the  difficulties  that  surrounded  the  new  Adminis 
tration  ;  we  appreciate  their  reluctance  to  begin  a 
war  the  responsibility  of  which  was  as  great  as  its 
consequences  seemed  doubtful ;  but  we  cannot  un 
derstand  how  it  was  hoped  to  evade  war,  except  by 
'concessions  vastly  more  disastrous  than  war  itself. 
War  has  no  evil  comparable  in  its  effect  on  na 
tional  character  to  that  of  a  craven  submission  to 
manifest  wrong,  the  postponement  of  moral  to  ma 
terial  interests.  There  is  no  prosperity  so  great  as 
courage.  We  do  not  believe  that  any  amount  of 
forbearance  would  have  conciliated  the  South  so 
long  as  they  thought  us  pusillanimous.  The  only 
way  to  retain  the  Border  States  was  by  showing 
that  we  had  the  will  and  the  power  to  do  without 
them.  The  little  Bopeep  policy  of 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S  REBELLION.     89 

"  Let  them  alone,  and  they  '11  all  come  home 
Wagging  their  tails  behind  them  " 

was  certainly  tried  long  enough  with  conspirators 
who  had  shown  unmistakably  that  they  desired 
nothing  so  much  as  the  continuance  of  peace,  es 
pecially  when  it  was  all  on  one  side,  and  who  would 
never  have  given  the  Government  the  great  advan 
tage  of  being  attacked  in  Fort  Sumter,  had  they 
not  supposed  they  were  dealing  with  men  who 
could  not  be  cuffed  into  resistance.  The  lesson  we 
have  to  teach  them  now  is,  that  we  are  thoroughly 
and  terribly  in  earnest.  Mr.  Stephens's  theories 
are  to  be  put  to  a  speedier  and  sterner  test  than  he 
expected,  and  we  are  to  prove  which  is  stronger, 
—  an  oligarchy  built  on  men,  or  a  commonwealth 
built  of  them.  Our  structure  is  alive  in  every  part 
with  defensive  and  recuperative  energies  ;  woe  to 
theirs,  if  that  vaunted  corner-stone  which  they  be 
lieve  patient  and  enduring  as  marble  should  begin 
to  writhe  with  intelligent  life  ! 

We  have  no  doubt  of  the  issue.  We  believe 
that  the  strongest  battalions  are  always  on  the  side 
of  God.  The  Southern  army  will  be  fighting  for 
Jefferson  Davis,  or  at  most  for  the  liberty  of  self- 
misgovernment,  while  we  go  forth  for  the  defence 
of  principles  which  alone  make  government  august 
and  civil  society  possible.  It  is  the  very  life  of  the 
nation  that  is  at  stake.  There  is  no  question  here 
of  dynasties,  races,  religions,  but  simply  whether 
we  will  consent  to  include  in  our  Bill  of  Rights  — 
not  merely  as  of  equal  validity  with  all  other  rights, 
whether  natural  or  acquired,  but  by  its  very  nature 


90  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

transcending  and  abrogating  them  all  —  the  Right 
of  Anarchy.  We  must  convince  men  that  treason 
against  the  ballot-box  is  as  dangerous  as  treason 
against  a  throne,  and  that,  if  they  play  so  desperate 
a  game,  they  must  stake  their  lives  on  the  hazard. 
The  one  lesson  that  remained  for  us  to  teach  the 
political  theorists  of  the  Old  World  was,  that  we 
are  as  strong  to  suppress  intestine  disorder  as  for 
eign  aggression,  and  we  must  teach  it  decisively 
and  thoroughly.  The  economy  of  war  is  to  be 
tested  by  the  value  of  the  object  to  be  gained  by 
it.  A  ten  years'  war  would  be  cheap  that  gave 
us  a  country  to  be  proud  of,  and  a  flag  that  should 
command  the  respect  of  the  world  because  it  was 
the  symbol  of  the  enthusiastic  unity  of  a  great 
nation. 

The  Government,  however  slow  it  may  have  been 
to  accept  the  war  which  Mr.  Buchanan's  supineness 
left  them,  is  acting  now  with  all  energy  and  deter 
mination.  What  they  have  a  right  to  claim  is  the 
confidence  of  the  people,  and  that  depends  in  good 
measure  on  the  discretion  of  the  press.  Only  let  us 
have  no  more  weakness  under  the  plausible  name 
of  Conciliation.  We  need  not  discuss  the  proba 
bilities  of  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Confederated 
States  by  England  and  France ;  we  have  only  to 
say,  "Acknowledge  them  afc  your  peril."  But  there 
is  no  chance  of  the  recognition  of  the  Confederacy 
by  any  foreign  governments,  so  long  as  it  is  with 
out  the  confidence  of  the  brokers.  There  is  no  ques 
tion  on  which  side  the  strength  lies.  The  whole 
tone  of  the  Southern  journals,  so  far  as  we  are  able 


PICKENS-AND-STEALIN'S  REBELLION.     91 

to  judge,  shows  the  inherent  folly  and  weakness  of 
the  secession  movement.  Men  who  feel  strong  in 
the  justice  of  their  cause,  or  confident  in  their  pow 
ers,  do  not  waste  breath  in  childish  boasts  of  their 
own  superiority  and  querulous  depreciation  of  their 
antagonists.  They  are  weak,  and  they  know  it. 
And  not  only  are  they  weak  in  comparison  with 
the  Free  States,  but  we  believe  they  are  without  the 
moral  support  of  whatever  deserves  the  name  of 
public  opinion  at  home.  If  not,  why  does  their 
Congress,  as  they  call  it,  hold  council  always  with 
closed  doors,  like  a  knot  of  conspirators  ?  The 
first  tap  of  the  Northern  drum  dispelled  many  illu 
sions,  and  we  need  no  better  proof  of  which  ship  is 
sinking  than  that  Mr.  Caleb  Gushing  should  have 
made  such  haste  to  come  over  to  the  old  Constitu 
tion,  with  the  stars  and  stripes  at  her  mast-head. 

We  cannot  think  that  the  war  we  are  entering 
on  can  end  without  some  radical  change  in  the  sys 
tem  of  African  slavery.  Whether  it  be  doomed 
to  a  sudden  extinction,  or  to  a  gradual  abolition 
through  economical  causes,  this  war  will  not  leave 
it  where  it  was  before.  As  a  power  in  the  state, 
its  reign  is  already  over.  The  fiery  tongues  of  the 
batteries  in  Charleston  harbor  accomplished  in  one 
day  a  conversion  which  the  constancy  of  Garrison 
and  the  eloquence  of  Phillips  had  failed  to  bring 
about  in  thirty  years.  And  whatever  other  result 
this  war  is  destined  to  produce,  it  has  already  won 
for  us  a  blessing  worth  everything  to  us  as  a  nation 
in  emancipating  the  public  opinion  of  the  North. 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  EEPORT. 

1864. 


can  conceive  of  no  object  capable  of  rous 
ing  deeper  sympathy  than  a  defeated  commander. 
Though  the  first  movement  of  popular  feeling  may 
be  one  of  wrathful  injustice,  yet,  when  the  ebb  of 
depression  has  once  fairly  run  out,  and  confidence 
begins  to  set  back,  hiding  again  that  muddy  bed  of 
human  nature  which  such  neap-tides  are  apt  to  lay 
bare,  there  is  a  kindly  instinct  which  leads  all  gen 
erous  minds  to  seek  every  possible  ground  of  extenu 
ation,  to  look  for  excuses  in  misfortune  rather  than 
incapacity,  and  to  allow  personal  gallantry  to  make 
up,  as  far  as  may  be,  for  want  of  military  genius. 
There  is  no  other  kind  of  failure  which  comes  so 
directly  home  to  us,  none  which  appeals  to  so  many 
of  the  most  deeply  rooted  sentiments  at  once. 
Want  of  success  in  any  other  shape  is  compara 
tively  a  personal  misfortune  to  the  man  himself 
who  fails  ;  but  how  many  hopes,  prides,  sacrifices, 
and  heroisms  are  centred  in  him  who  wields  the 
embattled  manhood  of  his  country!  An  army  is 
too  multitudinous  to  call  forth  that  personal  en 
thusiasm  which  is  a  necessity  of  the  heart.  The 
imagination  needs  a  single  figure  which  it  can 
invest  with  all  those  attributes  of  admiration  that 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.         93 

become  vague  and  pointless  when  divided  among 
a  host.  Accordingly,  we  impersonate  in  the  gen 
eral,  not  only  the  army  he  leads,  but  whatever 
qualities  we  are  proud  of  in  the  nation  itself.  He 
becomes  for  the  moment  the  ideal  of  all  masculine 
virtues,  and  the  people  are  eager  to  lavish  their 
admiration  on  him.  His  position  gives  him  at  a 
bound  what  other  men  must  spend  their  lives  in 
winning  or  vainly  striving  to  win.  If  he  gain  a 
battle,  he  flatters  that  pride  of  prowess  which, 
though  it  may  be  a  fault  of  character  in  the  in 
dividual  man,  is  the  noblest  of  passions  in  a  people. 
If  he  lose  one,  we  are  all  beaten  with  him,  we  all 
fall  down  with  our  Caesar,  and  the  grief  glistens 
in  every  eye,  the  shame  burns  on  every  cheek. 
Moralize  as  we  may  about  the  victories  of  peace 
and  the  superiority  of  the  goose-quill  over  the 
sword,  there  is  no  achievement  of  human  genius 
on  which  a  country  so  prides  itself  as  on  success  in 
war,  no  disgrace  over  which  it  broods  so  incon- 
solably  as  military  disaster. 

There  is  nothing  more  touching  than  the  sight 
of  a  nation  in  search  of  its  great  man,  nothing 
more  beautiful  than  its  readiness  to  accept  a  hero 
on  trust.  Nor  is  this  a  feeble  sentimentality.  It 
is  much  rather  a  noble  yearning  of  what  is  best  in 
us,  for  it  is  only  in  these  splendid  figures  which 
now  and  then  sum  up  all  the  higher  attributes  of 
character  that  the  multitude  of  men  can  ever  hope 
to  find  their  blind  instinct  of  excellence  realized 
and  satisfied.  Not  without  reason  are  nations 
always  symbolized  as  women,  for  there  is  some- 


94  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

thing  truly  feminine  in  the  devotion  with  which 
they  are  willing  to  give  all  for  and  to  their  ideal 
man,  and  the  zeal  with  which  they  drape  some 
improvised  Agamemnon  with  all  the  outward  shows 
of  royalty  from  the  property-room  of  imagination. 
This  eagerness  of  loyalty  toward  first-rate  char 
acter  is  one  of  the  conditions  of  mastery  in  every 
sphere  of  human  activity,  for  it  is  the  stuff  that 
genius  works  in.  Heroes,  to  be  sure,  cannot  be 
made  to  order,  yet  with  a  man  of  the  right  fibre, 
who  has  the  stuff  for  greatness  in  him,  the  popular 
enthusiasm  would  go  far  toward  making  him  in 
fact  what  he  is  in  fancy.  No  commander  ever  had 
more  of  this  paid-up  capital  of  fortune,  this  fame 
in  advance,  this  success  before  succeeding,  than 
General  McClellan.  That  dear  old  domestic  bird, 
the  Public,  which  lays  the  golden  eggs  out  of 
which  greenbacks  are  hatched,  was  sure  she  had 
brooded  out  an  eagle-chick  at  last.  How  we  all 
waited  to  see  him  stoop  on  the  dove-cote  of  Kich- 
mond !  Never  did  nation  give  such  an  example  of 
faith  and  patience  as  while  the  Army  of  the  Po 
tomac  lay  during  all  those  weary  months  before 
Washington.  Every  excuse  was  invented,  every 
palliation  suggested,  except  the  true  one,  that  our 
chicken  was  no  eagle,  after  all.  He  was  hardening 
his  seres,  he  was  waiting  for  his  wings  to  grow,  he 
was  whetting  his  beak ;  we  should  see  him  soar  at 
last  and  shake  the  thunder  from  his  wings.  But 
do  what  we  could,  hope  what  we  might,  it  became 
daily  clearer  that,  whatever  other  excellent  qualities 
he  might  have,  this  of  being  aquiline  was  wanting. 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.         95 

Disguise  and  soften  it  as  we  may,  the  campaign 
of  the  Peninsula  was  a  disastrous  failure,  —  a  fail 
ure  months  long,  like  a  bad  novel  in  weekly  instal 
ments,  with  "  To  be  continued  "  grimly  ominous  at 
the  end  of  every  part.  So  far  was  it  from  ending 
in  the  capture  of  Richmond  that  nothing  but  the 
gallantry  of  General  Pope  and  his  little  army 
hindered  the  Rebels  from  taking  Washington. 
And  now  comes  Major-General  George  B.  McClel- 
lan,  and  makes  affidavit  in  one  volume1  octavo 
that  he  is  a  great  military  genius,  after  all.  It 
should  seem  that  this  genius  is  of  two  varieties. 
The  first  finds  the  enemy,  and  beats  him ;  the 
second  finds  him,  and  succeeds  in  getting  away. 
General  McClellan  is  now  attempting  a  change  of 
base  in  the  face  of  public  opinion,  and  is  endeavor 
ing  to  escape  the  consequences  of  having  escaped 
from  the  Peninsula.  For  a  year  his  reputation 
flared  upward  like  a  rocket,  culminated,  burst,  and 
now,  after  as  long  an  interval,  the  burnt-out  case 
comes  down  to  us  in  this  Report. 

There  is  something  ludicrously  tragic,  as  our 
politics  are  managed,  in  seeing  an  Administration 
compelled  to  print  a  campaign  document  (for  such 
is  General  McClellan's  Report  in  a  double  sense) 
directed  against  itself.  Yet  in  the  present  case, 
had  it  been  possible  to  escape  the  penance,  it  had 

1  Letter  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  transmitting  Report  on  the 
Organization  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  of  the  Campaigns  in 
Virginia  and  Maryland  under  the  Command  of  Major-General 
George  B.  McClellan,  from  July  26,  1861,  to  November  7,  1862. 
Washington :  Government  Printing-Office.  1864.  8vo,  pp.  242. 


96  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

been  unwise,  for  we  think  that  no  unprejudiced  per 
son  can  read  the  volume  without  a  melancholy  feel 
ing  that  General  McClellan  has  foiled  himself  even 
more  completely  than  the  Rebels  were  able  to  do. 
He  should  have  been  more  careful  of  his  communi 
cations,  for  a  line  two  hundred  and  forty-two  pages 
long  is  likely  to  have  its  weak  points.  The  volume 
before  us  is  rather  the  plea  of  an  advocate  retained 
to  defend  the  General's  professional  character  and 
expound  his  political  opinions  than  the  curt,  color 
less,  unimpassioned  statement  of  facts  which  is 
usually  so  refreshing  in  the  official  papers  of  mili 
tary  men,  and  has  much  more  the  air  of  being 
addressed  to  a  jury  than  to  the  War  Department 
at  Washington.  It  is,  in  short,  a  letter  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  under  cover  to  the 
Secretary  of  War.  General  McClellan  puts  him 
self  upon  the  country,  and,  after  taking  as  much 
time  to  make  up  his  mind  as  when  he  wearied  and 
imperilled  the  nation  in  his  camp  on  the  Potomac, 
endeavors  to  win  back  from  public  opinion  the 
victory  which  nothing  but  his  own  over-caution 
enabled  the  Rebels  to  snatch  from  him  before 
Richmond.  He  cannot  give  us  back  our  lost  time 
or  our  squandered  legions ;  but  how  nice  it  would 
be  if  we  would  give  him  back  his  reputation,  which 
has  never  been  of  any  great  use  to  us,  and  yet 
would  be  so  convenient  for  him  !  It  was  made  for 
him,  and  accordingly  fits  him  better  than  it  would 
any  one  else.  But  it  is  altogether  too  late.  There 
is  no  argument  for  the  soldier  but  success,  no  wis 
dom  for  the  man  but  to  acknowledge  defeat  and  be 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.         97 

silent  under  it.  The  Great  Captain  on  his  sofa 
at  Longwood  may  demonstrate  how  the  Russian 
expedition  might,  could,  would,  and  should  have 
ended  otherwise;  but  meanwhile  its  results  are  not 
to  be  reasoned  with,  —  the  Bourbons  are  at  the 
Tuileries,  and  he  at  St.  Helena.  There  is  hardly 
anything  that  may  not  be  made  out  of  history  by 
a  skilful  manipulator.  Characters  may  be  white 
washed,  bigotry  made  over  into  zeal,  timidity  into 
prudence,  want  of  conviction  into  toleration,  ob 
stinacy  into  firmness ;  but  the  one  thing  that  can 
not  be  theorized  out  of  existence,  or  made  to  look 
like  anything  else,  is  a  lost  campaign. 

We  have  had  other  unsuccessful  generals,  but 
not  one  of  them  has  ever  been  tempted  into  the 
indecorum  of  endeavoring  to  turn  a  defeat  in  the 
field  to  political  advantage.  Not  one  has  thought 
of  defending  himself  by  imputations  on  his  supe 
riors.  Early  in  the  war  General  McDowell  set  an 
example  of  silence  under  slanderous  reproach  that 
won  for  him  the  sympathy  and  respect  of  whoever 
could  be  touched  by  self-reliant  manliness.  It  is 
because  General  McClellan  has  seen  fit  to  overstep 
the  bounds  of  a  proper  official  reserve,  because, 
after  more  than  a  year  for  reflection,  he  has  re 
peated  charges  of  the  grossest  kind  against  those 
under  whose  orders  he  was  acting,  and  all  this  from 
a  political  motive,  that  we  think  his  Report  deserv 
ing  of  more  than  usual  attention.  It  will  be  no 
fault  of  his  if  he  be  not  put  in  nomination  for  the 
Presidency,  and  accordingly  it  becomes  worth  our 
while  to  consider  such  evidences  of  character  and 
capacity  as  his  words  and  deeds  afford  us. 


POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

We  believe  that  General  McClellan  has  been 
ruined,  like  another  general  whose  name  began 
with  Mac,  by  the  "  All  hail  hereafter  "  of  certain 
political  witches,  who  took  his  fortunes  into  their 
keeping  after  his  campaign  in  Western  Virginia. 
He  had  shown  both  ability  and  decision  in  hand 
ling  a  small  force,  and  he  might  with  experience 
have  shown  similar  qualities  in  directing  the  op 
erations  of  a  great  army,  had  not  the  promise 
of"  the  Presidency  made  him  responsible  to  other 
masters  than  military  duty  and  unselfish  patriot 
ism.  Thenceforward  the  soldier  was  lost  in  the 
politician.  He  thought  more  of  the  effect  to 
be  produced  by  his  strategy  on  the  voters  behind 
him  than  oh  the  enemy  in  his  front.  What 
should  have  been  his  single  object  —  the  suppres 
sion  of  the  rebellion  for  the  sake  of  the  country  — • 
was  now  divided  with  the  desire  of  merely  ending 
it  by  some  plan  that  should  be  wholly  of  his  own 
contrivance,  and  should  redound  solely  to  his  own 
credit  and  advancement.  He  became  giddy  and 
presumptuous,  and  lost  that  sense  of  present  re 
alities,  so  essential  to  a  commander,  in  contempla 
ting  the  mirage  that  floated  the  White  House 
before  his  eyes.  At  an  age  considerably  beyond 
that  of  General  Bonaparte  when  he  had  trium 
phantly  closed  his  first  Italian  campaign,  he  was 
nick-named  "  the  young  Napoleon,"  and  from  that 
time  forth  seems  honestly  to  have  endeavored,  like 
Toepffer's  Albert,  to  resemble  the  ideal  portrait 
which  had  been  drawn  for  him  by  those  who  put 
him  forward  as  their  stalking-horse.  And  it  must 


GENERAL   McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.         99 

be  admitted  that  these  last  managed  matters 
cleverly,  if  a  little  coarsely.  They  went  to  work 
deliberately  to  Barnuinize  their  prospective  candi 
date.  '  No  prima  donna  was  ever  more  thoroughly 
exploited  by  her  Hebrew  impresario.  The  papers 
swarmed  with  anecdotes,  incidents,  sayings.  Noth 
ing  was  too  unimportant,  and  the  new  comman- 
der-in-chief  pulled  on  his  boots  by  telegram  from 
Maine  to  California,  and  picked  his  teeth  J)y  spe 
cial  despatch  to  the  Associated  Press.  We  had 
him  warm  for  supper  in  the  very  latest  with  three 
exclamation  marks,  and  cold  for  breakfast  in  last 
evening's  telegraphic  news  with  none.  Nothing 
but  a  patent  pill  was  ever  so  suddenly  famous. 

We  are  far  from  blaming  General  McClellan 
for  all  this.  He  probably  looked  upon  it  as  one  of 
the  inevitable  discomforts  of  distinction  in  Amer 
ica.  But  we  think  that  it  insensibly  affected  his 
judgment,  led  him  to  regard  himself  as  the  rep 
resentative  of  certain  opinions,  rather  than  as  a 
general  whose  whole  duty  was  limited  to  the  army 
under  his  command,  and  brought  him  at  last  to  a 
temper  of  mind  most  unfortunate  for  the  public 
interests,  in  which  he  could  believe  the  administra 
tion  personally  hostile  to  himself  because  opposed 
to  the  political  principles  of  those  who  wished  to 
profit  by  his  "  availability."  It  was  only  natural, 
too,  that  he  should  gradually  come  to  think  himself 
what  his  partisans  constantly  affirmed  that  he  was, 
—  the  sole  depositary  of  the  country's  destiny. 
We  form  our  judgment  of  General  McClellan 
solely  from  his  own  Report ;  we  believe  him  to  be 


100  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

honest  in  his  opinions,  and  patriotic  so  far  as  those 
opinions  will  allow  him  to  be  ;  we  know  him  to  be 
capable  of  attaching  those  about  him  in  a  warm 
personal  friendship,  and  we  reject  with  the  con 
tempt  they  deserve  the  imputations  on  his  courage 
and  his  military  honor ;  but  at  the  same  time  we 
consider  him  a  man  like  other  men,  with  a  head 
liable  to  be  turned  by  a  fame  too  easily  won.  His 
great  misfortune  was  that  he  began  his  first  impor 
tant  campaign  with  a  reputation  to  save  instead  of 
to  earn,  so  that  he  was  hampered  by  the  crown 
ing  disadvantage  of  age  in  a  general  without  the 
experience  which  might  neutralize  it.  Nay,  what 
was  still  worse,  he  had  two  reputations  to  keep 
from  damage,  the  one  as  soldier,  the  other  as  poli 
tician. 

He  seems  very  early  to  have  misapprehended 
the  true  relation  in  which  he  stood  to  the  govern 
ment.  By  the  operation  of  natural  causes,  as  poli 
ticians  would  call  them,  he  had  become  heir  pre 
sumptive  to  the  chair  of  state,  and  felt  called  on  to 
exert  an  influence  on  the  policy  of  the  war,  or  at 
least  to  express  an  opinion  that  might  go  upon 
record  for  future  convenience.  He  plunged  into 
that  Dismal  Swamp  of  constitutional  hermeneutics, 
in  which  the  wheels  of  government  were  stalled 
at  the  outbreak  of  our  rebellion,  and  from  which 
every  untrained  explorer  rises  with  a  mouth  too 
full  of  mud  to  be  intelligible  to  Christian  men. 
He  appears  to  have  thought  it  within  the  sphere 
of  his  duty  to  take  charge  of  the  statesmanship  of 
the  President  no  less  than  of  the  movements  of  the 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       101 

army,  nor  was  it  long  before  there  were  unmistak 
able  symptoms  that  he  began  to  consider  himself 
quite  as  much  the  chief  of  an  opposition  who  could 
dictate  terms  as  the  military  subordinate  who  was 
to  obey  orders.  Whatever  might  have  been  his 
capacity  as  a  soldier,  this  divided  allegiance  could 
not  fail  of  disastrous  consequences  to  the  public 
service,  for  no  mistress  exacts  so  jealously  the 
entire  devotion  of  her  servants  as  war.  A  mind 
distracted  with  calculations  of  future  political  con 
tingencies  was  not  to  be  relied  on  in  the  conduct 
of  movements  which  above  all  others  demand  the 
constant  presence,  the  undivided  energy,  of  all  the 
faculties,  and  the  concentration  of  every  personal 
interest  on  the  one  object  of  immediate  success.  A 
general  who  is  conscious  that  he  has  an  army  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  voters  at  his  back 
will  be  always  weakened  by  those  personal  con 
siderations  which  are  the  worst  consequence  of 
the  elective  system.  General  McClellan's  motions 
were  encumbered  in  every  direction  by  a  huge 
train  of  political  baggage.  This  misconception  of 
his  own  position,  or  rather  his  confounding  the  two 
characters  of  possible  candidate  and  actual  general, 
forced  the  growth  of  whatever  egotism  was  latent 
in  his  nature.  'He  began  erelong  to  look  at  every 
thing  from  a  personal  point  of  view,  to  judge  men 
and  measures  by  their  presumed  relation  to  his  own 
interests,  and  at  length  fairly  persuaded  himself 
that  the  inevitable  results  of  his  own  want  of  initia 
tive  were  due  to  the  hostile  combination  against 
him  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Stanton,  and  General 


102  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Halleck.  Regarding  himself  too  much  in  consid 
ering  the  advantages  of  success,  he  regards  others 
too  little  in  awarding  the  responsibility  of  failure. 

The  intense  self-consciousness  of  General  Mc- 
Clellan  and  a  certain  aim  at  effect  for  ulterior  and 
unmilitary  purposes  show  themselves  early.  In 
October,  1861,  addressing  a  memorial  to  Mr.  Cam 
eron,  then  Secretary  of  War,  he  does  not  forget 
the  important  constituency  of  Buncombe.  "  The 
unity  of  this  nation,"  he  says,  "  the  preservation  of 
our  institutions,  are  so  dear  to  me  that  I  have  will 
ingly  sacrificed  my  private  happiness  with  the  sin 
gle  object  of  doing  my  duty  to  my  country.  When 
the  task  is  accomplished,  I  shall  be  glad  to  retire 
to  the  obscurity  from  which  events  have  drawn  me. 
Whatever  the  determination  of  the  government 
may  be,  I  will  do  the  best  I  can  with  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  and  will  share  its  fate,  whatever  may 
be  the  task  imposed  upon  me."  Not  to  speak  of 
taste,  the  utter  blindness  to  the  true  relations  of 
things  shown  in  such  language  is  startling.  What 
sacrifice  had  General  McClellan  made  which  had 
not  been  equally  made  by  every  one  of  the  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  men  of  his  army  ?  Educated  at 
the  expense  of  the  country,  his  services  were  a 
debt  due  on  demand.  And  what  was  the  sacrifice 
of  which  a  soldier  speaks  so  pathetically  ?  To  be 
raised  from  the  management  of  a  railway  to  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  and  inspiring  positions  of 
modern  times,  to  an  opportunity  such  as  comes 
rarely  to  any  man,  and  then  only  as  the  reward  of 
transcendent  ability  transcendently  displayed !  To 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       103 

step  from  a  captaincy  of  engineers  to  the  command 
in  chief  of  a  great  nation  on  fire  with  angry  enthu 
siasm,  spendthrift  of  men,  money,  devotion,  to  be 
the  chosen  champion  of  order,  freedom,  and  civili 
zation,  —  this  is  indeed  a  sacrifice  such  as  few  men 
have  been  called  upon  to  make  by  their  native 
land  !  And  of  what  is  General  McClellan  think 
ing  when  he  talks  of  returning  to  obscurity  ?  Of 
what  are  men  commonly  thinking  when  they  talk 
thus?  The  newspapers  would  soon  grow  rich,  if 
everybody  should  take  to  advertising  what  he  did 
not  want.  And,  moreover,  to  what  kind  of  obscu 
rity  can  a  successful  general  return  ?  An  obscurity 
made  up  of  the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  his 
countrymen,  a  strange  obscurity  of  glory  !  Nor  is 
this  the  only  occasion  on  which  the  General  speaks 
of  his  willingness  to  share  the  fate  of  his  army. 
What  corporal  could  do  less  ?  No  man  thoroughly 
in  earnest,  and  with  the  fate  of  his  country  in  his 
hands  and  no  thought  but  of  that,  could  have  any 
place  in  his  mind  for  such  footlight  phrases  as 
these. 

General  McClellan's  theory  from  the  first  seems 
to  have  been  that  a  large  army  would  make  a 
great  general,  though  all  history  shows  that  the 
genius,  decision,  and  confidence  of  a  leader  are  the 
most  powerful  reinforcement  of  the  troops  under 
his  command,  and  that  an  able  captain  makes  a 
small  army  powerful  by  recruiting  it  with  his  own 
vigor  and  enthusiasm.  From  the  time  of  his  tak 
ing  the  command  till  his  removal,  he  was  con 
stantly  asking  for  more  men,  constantly  receiving 


104  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

them,  and  constantly  unable  to  begin  anything 
with  them  after  he  got  them.  He  could  not  move 
without  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pairs  of 
legs,  and  when  his  force  had  long  reached  that 
number,  the  President  was  obliged  by  the  over 
taxed  impatience  of  the  country  to  pry  him  up 
from  his  encampment  on  the  Potomac  with  a  spe 
cial  order.  What  the  army  really  needed  was  an 
addition  of  one  man,  and  that  at  the  head  of  it ; 
for  a  general,  like  an  orator,  must  be  moved  him 
self  before  he  can  move  others.  The  larger  his 
army,  the  more  helpless  was  General  McClellan. 
Like  the  magician's  famulus,  who  rashly  under 
took  to  play  the  part  of  master,  and  who  could 
evoke  powers  that  he  could  not  control,  he  was 
swamped  in  his  own  supplies.  With  every  rein 
forcement  sent  him  on  the '  Peninsula,  his  estimate 
of  the  numbers  opposed  to  him  increased.  His 
own  imagination  faced  him  in  superior  numbers  at 
every  turn.  Since  Don  Quixote's  enumeration  of 
the  armies  of  the  Emperor  Alifanfaron  and  King 
Pentapolin  of  the  Naked  Arm,  there  has  been 
nothing  like  our  General's  vision  of  the  Rebel 
forces,  with  their  ever-lengthening  list  of  leaders, 
gathered  for  the  defence  of  Richmond.  His  anx 
iety  swells  their  muster-roll  at  last  to  two  hundred 
thousand.  We  say  his  anxiety,  for  no  man  of  ordi 
nary  judgment  can  believe  that  with  that  number 
of  men  the  Rebel  leaders  would  not  have  divided 
their  forces,  with  one  army  occupying  General 
McClellan,  while  they  attempted  the  capital  he 
had  left  uncovered  with  the  other. 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       105 

The  first  plan  proposed  by  General  McClellan 
covered  operations  extending  from  Virginia  to 
Texas.  With  a  main  army  of  two  hundred  and 
seventy-three  thousand  he  proposes  "  not  only  to 
drive  the  enemy  out  of  Virginia  and  occupy  Rich 
mond,  but  to  occupy  Charleston,  Savannah,  Mont 
gomery,  Pensacola,  Mobile,  and  New  Orleans ;  in 
other  words,  to  move  into  the  heart  of  the  enemy's 
country  and  crush  the  rebellion  in  its  very  heart." 
We  do  not  say  that  General  McClellan's  ambition 
to  be  the  one  man  who  should  crush  the  rebellion 
was  an  unworthy  one,  but  that  his  theory  that  this 
was  possible,  and  in  the  way  he  proposed,  shows 
him  better  fitted  to  state  the  abstract  problems 
than  to  apprehend  the  complex  details  of  their  so 
lution  when  they  lie  before  him  as  practical  diffi 
culties.  For  when  we 'consider  the  necessary  de 
tachments  from  this  force  to  guard  his  communi 
cations  through  an  enemy's  country,  as  he  wishes 
the  President  to  do,  in  order  to  justify  the  large 
ness  of  the  force  required,  we  cannot  help  asking 
how  soon  the  army  for  active  operations  would  be 
reduced  to  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand.  And 
how  long  would  a  general  be  in  reaching  New  Or 
leans,  if  he  is  six  months  in  making  up  his  mind 
to  advance  with  an  army  of  that  strength  on  the 
insignificant  fortifications  of  Manassas,  manned, 
according  to  the  best  information,  with  forty  thou 
sand  troops  ?  At  the  same  time  General  McClellan 
assigns  twenty  thousand  as  a  force  adequate  for 
opening  the  Mississippi.  This  plan,  to  be  sure, 
was  soon  abandoned,  but  it  is  an  illustration  of  the 


106  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

want  of  precision  and  forethought  which  charac 
terizes  the  mind  of  its  author.  A  man  so  vague  in 
his  conceptions  is  apt  to  be  timid  in  action,  for  the 
same  haziness  of  mind  may,  according  to  circum 
stances,  either  soften  and  obscure  the  objects  of 
thought,  or  make  them  loom  with  purely  fantastic 
exaggeration.  There  is  a  vast  difference  between 
clearness  of  head  on  demand  and  the  power  of 
framing  abstract  schemes  of  action,  beautiful  in 
their  correctness  of  outline  and  apparent  simplicity. 
It  is  a  perception  of  this  truth,  we  believe,  which 
leads  practical  men  always  to  suspect  plans  sup 
ported  by  statistics  too  exquisitely  conclusive. 

It  was  on  precisely  such  a  specious  basis  of  defi 
nite  misinformation  that  General  McClellan's  next 
proposal  for  the  campaign  by  way  of  the  Peninsula 
rested,  —  precise  facts  before  he  sets  out  turning 
to  something  like  precise  no-facts  when  he  gets 
there,  —  beautiful  completeness  of  conception  end 
ing  in  hesitation,  confusion,  and  failure.  Before 
starting,  "  the  roads  are  passable  at  all  seasons  of 
the  year,  the  country  much  more  favorable  for 
offensive  operations  than  that  in  front  of  Washing 
ton,  much  more  level,  the  woods  less  dense,  the  soil 
more  sandy "  (p.  47).  After  arriving,  we  find 
"  the  roads  impassable,"  "  very  dense  and  extensive 
forests,  the  clearings  being  small  and  few ; "  and 
"  the  comparative  flatness  of  the  country  and  the 
alertness  of  the  enemy,  everywhere  in  force,  ren 
dered  thorough  reconnoissances  slow,  dangerous, 
and  difficult  "  (p.  79).  General  McClellan's  men 
tal  constitution  would  seem  to  be  one  of  those,  easily 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       107 

elated  and  easily  depressed,  that  exaggerate  dis 
tant  advantages  and  dangers  near  at  hand,  — 
minds  stronger  in  conception  than  perception,  and 
accordingly,  as  such  always  are,  wanting  that  fac 
ulty  of  swift  decision  which,  catching  inspiration 
from  danger,  makes  opportunity  success.  Add  to 
this  a  kind  of  adhesiveness  (we  can  hardly  call 
it  obstinacy  or  pertinacity)  of  temper,  which  can 
make  no  allowance  for  change  of  circumstances, 
and  we  think  we  have  a  tolerably  clear  notion  of 
the  causes  of  General  McClellan's  disasters.  He 
can  compose  a  good  campaign  beforehand,  but  he 
cannot  improvise  one  out  of  the  events  of  the  mo 
ment,  as  is  the  wont  of  great  generals.  Occasion 
seldom  offers  her  forelock  twice  to  the  grasp  of  the 
same  man,  and  yet  General  McClellan,  by  the  ad 
mission  of  the  Rebels  themselves,  had  Richmond 
at  his  mercy  more  than  once. 

He  seems  to  attribute  his  misfortunes  mainly 
to  the  withdrawal  of  General  McDowell's  division, 
and  its  consequent  failure  to  cooperate  with  his 
own  forces.  But  the  fact  is  patent  that  the  cam 
paign  was  lost  by  his  sitting  down  in  front  of  York- 
town,  and  wasting  a  whole  month  in  a  series  of 
approaches  whose  scientific  propriety  would  have 
delighted  Uncle  Toby,  to  reduce  a  garrison  of 
eight  thousand  men.  Without  that  delay,  which 
gave  the  Rebels  time  to  send  Jackson  into  the  She- 
nandoah  valley,  General  McDowell's  army  would 
have  been  enabled  to  come  to  his  assistance.  Gen 
eral  McClellan,  it  is  true,  complains  that  it  was 
not  sent  round  by  water,  as  he  wished ;  but  even  if 


108  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

it  had  been,  it  could  only  have  been  an  addition  of 
helplessness  to  an  army  already  too  unwieldy  for 
its  commander ;  for  he  really  made  the  Rebel  force 
double  his  own  (as  he  always  fancied  it)  by  never 
bringing  more  than  a  quarter  of  his  army  into  ac 
tion  at  once.  Yet  during  the  whole  campaign  he 
was  calling  for  more  men,  and  getting  them,  till 
his  force  reached  the  highest  limit  he  himself  had 
ever  set.  When  every  available  man,  and  more, 
had  been  sent  him,  he  writes  from  Harrison's  Bar 
to  Mr.  Stanton,  "  To  accomplish  the  great  task  of 
capturing  Richmond  and  putting  an  end  to  this  re 
bellion,  reinforcements  should  be  sent  to  me  rather 
much  over  than  less  than  one  hundred  thousand 
men."  This  letter  General  McClellan  has  not  seen 
fit  to  include  in  his  Report.  Was  the  government 
to  be  blamed  for  pouring  no  more  water  into  a 
sieve  like  this  ? 

It  certainly  was  a  great  mistake  on  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  part  to  order  General  McDowell  off  on  a 
wild-goose  chase  after  Jackson.  The  cooperation 
of  this  force  might  have  enabled  General  McClel 
lan  even  then  to  retrieve  his  campaign,  and  we  do 
not  in  the  le^ast  blame  him  for  feeling  bitterly  the 
disappointment  of  wanting  it.  But  it  seems  to  us 
that  it  was  mainly  his  own  fault  that  there  was 
anything  to  retrieve,  and  the  true  occasion  to  re 
cover  his  lost  ground  was  offered  him  after  his 
bloody  repulse  of  the  enemy  at  Malvern  Hill, 
though  he  did  not  turn  it  to  account.  For  his  re 
treat  we  think  he  would  deserve  all  credit,  had  he 
not  been  under  the  necessity  of  making  it.  It  was 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       109 

conducted  with  great  judgment  and  ability,  and 
we  do  not  love  that  partisan  narrowness  of  mind 
that  would  grudge  him  the  praise  so  fairly  earned. 
But  at  the  same  time  it  is  not  ungenerous  to  say 
that  the  obstinate  valor  shown  by  his  army  under 
all  the  depression  of  a  backward  movement,  while 
it  proves  how  much  General  McClellan  had  done 
to  make  it  an  effective  force,  makes  us  regret  all 
the  more  that  he  should  have  wanted  the  decision 
to  try  its  quality  under  the  inspiration  of  attack. 
It  is  impossible  that  the  spirit  of  the  army  should 
not  have  been  affected  by  the  doubt  and  indecision 
of  their  general.  They  fought  nobly,  but  they 
were  always  on  the  defensive.  Had  General  Mc 
Clellan  put  them  at  once  on  the  aggressive,  we 
believe  his  campaign  would  have  been  a  trium 
phant  one.  With  truly  great  generals  resolve  is 
instinctive,  a  deduction  from  premises  supplied  by 
the  eye,  not  the  memory,  and  men  find  out  the  sci 
ence  of  their  achievements  afterwards,  like  the 
mathematical  law  in  the  Greek  column.  The 
stiffness  rather  than  firmness  of  mind,  the  surren 
der  of  all  spontaneous  action  in  the  strait-waistcoat 
of  a  preconceived  plan,  to  which  we  have  before 
alluded,  unfitted  him  for  that  rapid  change  of  com 
binations  on  the  great  chess-board  of  battle  which 
enabled  General  Kosecrans  at  Murfreesboro  to 
turn  defeat  into  victory,  an  achievement  without 
parallel  in  the  history  of  the  war. 

General  McClellan  seems  to  have  considered  the 
President  too  careful  of  the  safety  of  the"  capital ; 
but  he  should  measure  the  value  of  Washington  by 


110  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

what  he  himself  thought  of  the  importance  of  tak 
ing  Richmond.  That,  no  doubt,  would  be  a  great 
advantage,  but  the  loss  of  a  recognized  seat  of  gov 
ernment,  with  its  diplomatic  and  other  traditions, 
would  have  been  of  vastly  more  fatal  consequence 
to  us  than  the  capture  of  their  provisional  perch  in 
Virginia  would  have  been  to  the  Rebel  authorities. 
It  would  have  brought  foreign  recognition  to  the 
Rebels,  and  thrown  Maryland  certainly,  and  prob 
ably  Kentucky,  into  the  scale  against  us.  So  long 
as  we  held  Washington,  we  had  on  our  side  the 
two  powerful  sentiments  of  permanence  and  tradi 
tion,  some  insensible  portions  of  which  the  Rebels 
were  winning  from  us  with  every  day  of  repose  al 
lowed  them  by  General  McClellan.  It  was  a  clear 
sense  of  this  that  both  excited  and  justified  the 
impatience  of  the  people,  who  saw  that  the  in 
surrection  was  gaining  the  coherence  and  prestige 
of  an  established  power,  —  an  element  of  much 
strength  at  home  and  abroad.  That  this  popular 
instinct  was  not  at  fault,  we  have  the  witness  of 
General  Kirby  Smith,  who  told  Colonel  Fremantle 
"  that  McClellan  might  probably  have  destroyed 
the  Southern  army  with  the  greatest  ease  during 
the  first  winter,  and  without  much  risk  to  himself, 
as  the  Southerners  were  so  much  over-elated  by 
their  easy  triumph  at  Manassas,  and  their  army 
had  dwindled  away." 

We  have  said  that  General  McClellan' s  vol 
ume  is  rather  a  plea  in  abatement  of  judgment 
than  a  report.  It  was  perfectly  proper  that  he 
should  endeavor  to  put  everything  in  its  true 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       Ill 

light,  and  he  would  be  sure  of  the  sympathy  of 
all  right-minded  men  in  so  doing;  but  an  ex 
parte  statement  at  once  rouses  and  justifies  ad 
verse  criticism.  He  has  omitted  many  documents 
essential  to  the  formation  of  a  just  opinion ;  and  it 
is  only  when  we  have  read  these  also,  in  the  Re 
port  of  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War, 
that  we  feel  the  full  weight  of  the  cumulative  evi 
dence  going  to  show  the  hearty  support  in  men 
and  confidence  that  he  received  from  the  Adminis 
tration,  and,  when  there  were  no  more  men  to  be 
sent,  and  confidence  began  to  yield  before  irresisti 
ble  facts,  the  prolonged  forbearance  with  which  he 
was  still  favored.  Nothing  can  be  kinder  or  more 
cordial  than  the  despatches  and  letters  both  of  the 
President  and  Mr.  Stanton,  down  to  the  time  when 
General  McClellan  wrote  the  following  sentences 
at  the  end  of  an  official  communication  addressed 
to  the  latter :  "  If  I  save  this  army  now,  I  tell  you 
plainly  that  I  owe  no  thanks  to  you,  or  to  any 
other  persons  in  Washington.  You  have  done 
your  best  to  sacrifice  this  army."  (28th  June, 
1862.)  We  shall  seek  no  epithet  to  characterize 
language  like  this.  All  but  the  most  bigoted  par 
tisans  will  qualify  it  as  it  deserves.  We  have  here 
a  glaring  example  of  that  warping  of  good  sense 
and  good  feeling  which  the  consciousness  of  having 
a  political  stake  at  risk  will  produce  in  a  gallant 
soldier  and  a  courteous  gentleman.  Can  General 
McClellan,  after  a  year  to  grow  cool  in,  either  him 
self  believe,  or  expect  any  one  else  to  believe,  that 
the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  War  would 


112  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

"  do  their  best  to  sacrifice  "  an  army  of  a  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  brave  men,  in  order  to  lessen 
his  possible  chances  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency  ?  It  was  of  vastly  more  importance  to  them 
than  to  him  that  he  should  succeed.  The  dignified 
good  temper  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  answer  to  this  wan 
ton  insult  does  him  honor :  "  I  have  not  said  you 
were  ungenerous  for  saying  you  needed  reinforce 
ments  ;  I  thought  you  were  ungenerous  in  assum 
ing  that  I  did  not  send  them  as  fast  as  I  could.  I 
feel  any  misfortune  to  you  and  your  army  quite  as 
keenly  as  you  feel  it  yourself."  Mr.  Stanton  could 
only  be  silent;  and  whatever  criticisms  may  be 
made  on  some  traits  of  his  character,  he  is  quite 
safe  in  leaving  the  rebuke  of  such  an  imputation 
to  whoever  feels  that  earnestness,  devotion,  and 
unflagging  purpose  are  high  qualities  in  a  public 
officer. 

If  General  McClellan  had  been  as  prompt  in 
attacking  the  enemy  as  he  showed  himself  in  this 
assault  on  his  superiors,  we  think  his  campaign  in 
the  Peninsula  would  have  ended  more  satisfacto 
rily.  We  have  no  doubt  that  he  would  conduct 
a  siege  or  a  defence  with  all  the  science  and  all 
the  proprieties  of  warfare,  but  we  think  he  has 
proved  himself  singularly  wanting  in  the  qualities 
which  distinguish  the  natural  leaders  of  men.  He 
had  every  theoretic  qualification,  but  no  ardor,  no 
leap,  no  inspiration.  A  defensive  general  is  an 
earthen  redoubt,  not  an  ensign  to  rally  enthusiasm 
and  inspire  devotion.  Caution  will  never  make  an 
army,  though  it  may  sometimes  save  one.  We 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.        113 

think  General  McClellan  reduced  the  efficiency 
and  lowered  the  tone  of  his  soldiers  by  his  six 
months'  dose  of  prudence.  With  every  day  he 
gave  the  enemy,  he  lessened  his  chances  of  success, 
and  added  months  to  the  duration  of  the  war.  He 
never  knew  how  to  find  opportunity,  much  less  to 
make  it.  He  was  an  accomplished  soldier,  but 
lacked  that  downright  common  sense  which  is  only 
another  name  for  genius  with  its  coat  off  for  actual 
work  in  hand. 

Were  General  McClellan's  Keport  nothing  more 
than  a  report,  were  the  General  himself  nothing 
more  than  an  officer  endeavoring  to  palliate  a  fail 
ure,  we  should  not  have  felt  called  on  to  notice  his 
plea,  unless  to  add  publicity  to  any  new  facts  he 
might  be  able  to  bring  forward.  But  the  Report 
is  a  political  manifesto,  and  not  only  that,  but  an 
attack  on  the  administration  which  appointed  him 
to  the  command,  supported  him  with  all  its  re 
sources,  and  whose  only  fault  it  was  not  sooner  to 
discover  his  incapacity  to  conduct  aggressive  move 
ments.  General  McClellan  is  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  and  as  he  has  had  no  opportunity  to 
show  his  capacity  in  any  civil  function,  his  claim 
must  rest  on  one  of  two  grounds,  —  either  the  abil 
ity  he  has  shown  as  a  general,  or  the  specific  prin 
ciples  of  policy  he  is  supposed  to  represent.  What 
ever  may  be  the  success  of  our  operations  in  the 
field,  our  Chief  Magistracy  for  the  next  four  years 
will  demand  a  person  of  great  experience  and  abil 
ity.  Questions  cannot  fail  to  arise  taxing  pru 
dence  of  the  longest  forecast  and  decision  of  the 


114  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

firmest  quality.  How  far  is  General  McClellan 
likely  to  fulfill  these  conditions?  What  are  the 
qualities  of  mind  of  which  both  his  career  and  his 
Report  give  the  most  irrefragable  evidence  ? 

General  McClellan's  mind  seems  to  be  equally 
incapable  of  appreciating  the  value  of  time  as  the 
material  of  action,  and  its  power  in  changing  the 
relations  of  facts,  and  thus  modifying  the  basis  of 
opinion.  He  is  a  good  maker  of  almanacs,  but  no 
good  judge  of  the  weather.  Judging  by  the  politi 
cal  counsel  which  he  more  than  once  felt  called 
upon  to  offer  the  President,  and  which,  as  he  has 
included  it  in  his  Report,  we  must  presume  to  rep 
resent  his  present  opinions,  he  does  not  seem  even 
yet  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  this  is  not  a  war 
between  two  nations,  but  an  attempt  at  revolution 
within  ourselves,  which  can  be  adequately  met  only 
by  revolutionary  measures.  And  yet,  if  he  were  at 
this  moment  elevated  to  the  conduct  of  our  affairs, 
he  would  find  himself  controlled  by  the  same  neces 
sities  which  have  guided  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  must 
either  adopt  his  measures,  or  submit  to  a  peace 
dictated  by  the  South.  No  side  issue  as  to  how 
the  war  shall  be  conducted  is  any  longer  possible. 
The  naked  question  is  one  of  war  or  submission, 
for  compromise  means  surrender ;  and  if  the  choice 
be  war,  we  cannot  afford  to  give  the  enemy  fifty 
in  the  game,  by  standing  upon  scruples  which  he 
would  be  the  last  to  appreciate  or  to  act  upon.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  terrible  features  of  war  that  it 
must  be  inexorable  by  its  very  nature. 

Great  statesmanship  and  great  generalship  have 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.       115 

been  more  than  once  shown  by  the  same  man,  and, 
naturally  enough,  because  they  both  result  from 
the  same  qualities  of  mind,  an  instant  apprehen 
sion  of  the  demand  of  the  moment,  and  a  self-con 
fidence  that  can  as  instantly  meet  it,  so  that  every 
energy  of  the  man  is  gathered  to  one  intense  focus. 
It  is  the  faculty  of  being  a  present  man,  instead  of 
a  prospective  one ;  of  being  ready,  instead  of  get 
ting  ready.  Though  we  think  great  injustice  has 
been  done  by  the  public  to  General  McClellan's 
really  high  merits  as  an  officer,  yet  it  seems  to  us 
that  those  very  merits  show  precisely  the  character 
of  intellect  to  unfit  him  for  the  task  just  now  de 
manded  of  a  statesman.  His  capacity  for  organ 
ization  may  be  conspicuous ;  but,  be  it  what  it  may, 
it  is  one  thing  to  bring  order  out  of  the  confusion 
of  mere  inexperience,  and  quite  another  to  retrieve 
it  from  a  chaos  of  elements  mutually  hostile,  which 
is  the  problem  sure  to  present  itself  to  the  next 
administration.  This  will  constantly  require  pre 
cisely  that  judgment  on  the  nail,  and  not  to  be 
drawn  for  at  three  days'  sight,  of  which  General 
McClellan  has  shown  least. 

Is  our  path  to  be  so  smooth  for  the  next  four 
years  that  a  man  whose  leading  characteristic  is 
an  exaggeration  of  difficulties  is  likely  to  be  our 
surest  guide  ?  If  the  war  is  still  to  be  carried  on,  — 
and  surely  the  nation  has  shown  no  symptoms  of 
slackening  in  its  purpose,  —  what  modifications 
of  it  would  General  McClellan  introduce?  The 
only  information  that  is  vouchsafed  us  is,  that  he  is 
to  be  the  "  conservative  "  candidate,  a  phrase  that 


116  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

may  mean  too  little  or  too  much.  As  well  as  we 
can  understand  it,  it  is  the  convenient  formula  by 
which  to  express  the  average  want  of  opinions  of 
all  who  are  out  of  place,  out  of  humor,  or  dislike 
the  dust  which  blinds  and  chokes  whoever  is  be 
hind  the  times.  Sometimes  it  is  used  as  the  rally- 
ing-cry  of  an  amiable  class  of  men,  who  still  believe, 
in  a  vague  sort  of  way,  that  the  rebels  can  be 
conciliated  by  offering  them  a  ruler  more  comme  il 
faut  than  Mr.  Lincoln,  a  country  where  a  flatboat- 
man  may  rise  to  the  top,  by  virtue  of  mere  man 
hood,  being  hardly  the  place  for  people  of  truly 
refined  sensibilities.  Or  does  it  really  mean  no 
thing  more  nor  less  than  that  we  are  to  try  to  put 
slavery  back  again  where  it  was  before  (only  that 
it  is  not  quite  convenient  just  now  to  say  so),  on 
the  theory  that  ideologically  the  pot  of  ointment 
was  made  to  conserve  the  dead  fly  ? 

In  the  providence  of  God  the  first  thoughtless 
enthusiasm  of  the  nation  has  settled  to  deep  pur 
pose,  their  anger  has  been  purified  by  trial  into 
a  conviction  of  duty,  and  they  are  face  to  face  with 
one  of  those  rare  occasions  where  duty  and  advan 
tage  are  identical.  The  man  who  is  fit  for  the 
office  of  President  in  these  times  should  be  one 
who  knows  how  to  advance,  an  art  which  General 
McClellan  has  never  learned.  He  must  be  one 
who  comprehends  that  three  years  of  war  have 
made  vast  changes  in  the  relative  values  of  things. 
He  must  be  one  who  feels  to  the  very  marrow  of 
his  bones  that  this  is  a  war,  not  to  conserve  the 
forms,  but  the  essence,  of  free  institutions.  He 


GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  REPORT.     117 

must  be  willing  to  sacrifice  everything  to  the  single 
consideration  of  success,  because  success  means 
truth  and  honor ;  to  use  every  means,  though  they 
may  alarm  the  fears  of  men  who  are  loyal  with 
a  reservation,  or  shock  the  prejudices  of  would-be 
traitors.  No  middle  course  is  safe  in  troubled 
times,  and  the  only  way  to  escape  the  dangers  of 
revolution  is  by  directing  its  forces  and  giving  it 
useful  work  to  do. 


THE     REBELLION:    ITS    CAUSES    AND 
CONSEQUENCES. 

1864. 

IN  spite  of  the  popular  theory  that  nothing  is 
so  fallacious  as  circumstantial  evidence,  there  is 
no  man  of  observation  who  would  not  deem  it 
more  trustworthy  than  any  human  testimony, 
however  honest,  which  was  made  up  from  per 
sonal  recollection.  The  actors  in  great  affairs 
are  seldom  to  be  depended  on  as  witnesses,  either 
to  the  order  of  events  or  their  bearing  upon  re 
sults  ;  for  even  where  selfish  interest  is  not  to  be 
taken  into  account,  the  mythic  instinct  erelong 
begins  to  shape  things  as  they  ought  to  have 
been,  rather  than  as  they  were.  This  is  true 
even  of  subjects  in  which  we  have  no  personal 
interest,  and  not  only  do  no  two  men  describe 
the  same  street-scene  in  the  same  way,  but  the 
same  man,  unless  prosaic  to  a  degree  below  the 
freezing-point  of  Tupper,  will  never  do  it  twice 
in  the  same  way.  Few  men,  looking  into  their 
old  diaries,  but  are  astonished  at  the  contrast, 
sometimes  even  the  absolute  unlikeness,  between 
the  matters  of  fact  recorded  there  and  their  own 
recollection  of  them.  Shortly  after  the  battle 
of  Lexington  it  was  the  interest  of  the  Colo- 


THE  REBELLION.  119 

nies  to  make  the  British  troops  not  only  wan 
ton,  but  unresisted,  aggressors ;  and  if  primitive 
Christians  could  be  manufactured  by  affidavit, 
so  large  a  body  of  them  ready  to  turn  the  other 
cheek  also  was  never  gathered  as  in  the  minute- 
men  before  the  meeting-house  on  the  19th  of 
April,  1775.  The  Anglo-Saxon  could  not  fight 
comfortably  without  the  law  on  his  side.  But 
later,  when  the  battle  became  a  matter  of  local 
pride,  the  muskets  that  had  been  fired  at  the  Red 
coats  under  Pitcairn  almost  rivalled  in  number 
the  pieces  of  furniture  that  came  over  in  the 
Mayflower.  Indeed,  whoever  has  talked  much 
with  Revolutionary  pensioners  knows  that  those 
honored  veterans  were  no  less  remarkable  for 
imagination  than  for  patriotism.  It  should  seem 
that  there  is,  perhaps,  nothing  on  which  so  little 
reliance  is  to  be  placed  as  facts,  especially  when 
related  by  one  who  saw  them.  It  is  no  slight 
help  to  our  charity  to  recollect  that,  in  disput 
able  matters,  every  man  sees  according  to  his 
prejudices,  and  is  stone-blind  to  whatever  he  did 
not  expect  or  did  not  mean  to  see.  Even  where 
no  personal  bias  can  be  suspected,  contemporary 
and  popular  evidence  is  to  be  taken  with  great 
caution,  so  exceedingly  careless  are  men  as  to  ex 
act  truth,  and  such  poor  observers,  for  the  most 
part,  of  what  goes  on  under  their  eyes.  The 
ballad  which  was  hawked  about  the  streets  at 
the  execution  of  Captain  Kidd,  and  which  was 
still  to  be  bought  at  street-stalls  within  a  few 
years,  affirms  three  times  in  a  single  stanza  that 


120  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

the  pirate's  name  was  Robert.  Yet  he  was 
commissioned,  indicted,  convicted,  and  hanged  as 
William  Kidd.  Nor  was  he,  as  is  generally 
supposed,  convicted  of  piracy,  but  of  murder. 
The  marvels  of  Spiritualism  are  supernatural  to 
the  average  observer,  who  is  willing  to  pay  for 
that  dulness  from  another  world  which  he  might 
have  for  nothing  in  this,  while  they  seem  mere 
legerdemain,  and  not  of  the  highest  quality,  to 
the  trained  organs  of  scientific  men. 

History,  we  are  told,  is  philosophy  teaching 
by  example.  But  how  if  the  example  does,  not 
apply?  Le  Verrier  discovers  Neptune  when,  ac 
cording  to  his  own  calculations,  the  planet  should 
not  have  been  in  the  place  where  his  telescope 
found  it.  Does  the  example  redound  to  the 
credit  of  luck  or  of  mathematics  ?  The  histo 
rian  may  give  a  thoroughly  false  view  of  an  event 
by  simply  assuming  that  after  means  in  conse 
quence  of,  or  even  by  the  felicitous  turn  of  a 
sentence.  Style  will  find  readers  and  shape  con 
victions,  while  mere  truth  only  gathers  dust  on 
the  shelf.  The  memory  first,  and  by  degrees  the 
judgment,  is  enslaved  by  the  epigrams  of  Tacitus 
or  Michelet.  Our  conception  of  scenes  and  men 
is  outlined  and  colored  for  us  by  the  pictorial  im 
agination  of  Carlyle.  Indeed,  after  reading  his 
tory,  one  can  only  turn  round,  with  Montaigne, 
and  say,  What  know  I?  There  was  a  time  when 
the  reputation  of  Judas  might  have  been  thought 
past  mending,  but  a  German  has  whitewashed  him 
as  thoroughly  as  Malone  did  Shakespeare's  bust, 


THE  REBELLION.  121 

and  an  English  poet  made  him  the  hero  of  a  tra 
gedy,  as  the  one  among  the  disciples  who  believed 
too  much.  Call  no  one  happy  till  he  is  dead? 
Rather  call  no  one  safe,  whether  in  good  repute 
or  evil,  after  he  has  been  dead  long  enough  to 
have  his  effigy  done  in  historical  wax-work.  Only 
get  the  real  clothes,  that  is,  only  be  careful  to 
envelop  him  in  a  sufficiently  probable  dressing  of 
facts,  and  the  public  will  be  entirely  satisfied. 
What 's  Hecuba  to  us,  or  we  to  Hecuba  ?  Or  is 
Thackeray's  way  any  nearer  the  truth,  who  strips 
Louis  the  Great  of  all  his  stage -properties,  and 
shows  him  to  us  the  miserable  forked  radish  of 
decrepitude  ? 

There  are  many  ways  of  writing  what  is  called 
history.  The  earliest  and  simplest  was  to  record 
in  the  form  of  annals,  without  investigating,  what 
ever  the  writer  could  lay  hold  of,  the  only  thread  of 
connection  being  the  order  of  time,  so  that  events 
have  no  more  relation  to  each  other  than  so  many 
beads  on  a  string.  Higher  then  this,  because  more 
picturesque,  and  because  living  men  take  the  place 
of  mere  names,  are  the  better  class  of  chronicles, 
like  Froissart's,  in  which  the  scenes  sometimes  have 
the  minute  vividness  of  illumination,  and  the  page 
seems  to  take  life  and  motion  as  we  read.  The 
annalist  still  survives,  a  kind  of  literary  dodo, 
in  the  "  standard "  historian,  respectable,  immiti 
gable,  —  with  his  philosophy  of  history,  and  his 
stereotyped  phrase,  his  one  Amurath  succeeding 
another,  so  very  dead,  so  unlike  anything  but  his 
torical  characters,  that  we  can  scarce  believe  they 


122  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

ever  lived,  —  and  only  differing  from  his  ancient 
congener  of  the  monastery  by  his  skill  in  making 
ten  words  do  the  duty  of  one.  His  are  the  fatal 
books  without  which  no  gentleman's  library  can  be 
complete ;  his  the  storied  pages  which  ingenuous 
youth  is  invited  to  turn,  and  is  apt  to  turn  four  or 
five  together.  With  him  something  is  still  always 
sure  to  transpire  in  the  course  of  these  negoti 
ations,  still  the  traditional  door  is  opened  to  the 
inroad  of  democratic  innovation,  still  it  is  im 
possible  to  interpret  the  motives  which  inspired 
the  conduct  of  so-and-so  in  this  particular  emer 
gency.  So  little  does  he  himself  conceive  of  any 
possible  past  or  future  life  in  his  characters  that 
he  periphrases  death  into  a  disappearance  from  the 
page  of  history,  as  if  they  were  bodiless  and  soul 
less  creatures  of  pen  and  ink ;  mere  names,  not 
things.  Picturesqueness  he  sternly  avoids  as  the 
Delilah  of  the  philosophic  mind,  liveliness  as  a 
snare  of  the  careless  investigator;  and  so,  stop 
ping  both  ears,  he  slips  safely  by  those  Sirens, 
keeping  safe  that  sobriety  of  style  which  his  fel 
low-men  call  by  another  name.  Unhappy  books, 
which  we  know  by  heart  before  we  read  them,  and 
which  a  mysterious  superstition  yet  compels  many 
unoffending  persons  to  read !  What  has  not  the 
benevolent  reader  had  to  suffer  at  the  hands  of 
the  so-called  impartial  historian,  who,  wholly  dis 
interested  and  disinteresting,  writes  with  as  me 
chanic  an  industry  and  as  little  emotion  as  he 
would  have  brought  to  the  weaving  of  calico  or 
the  digging  of  potatoes,  under  other  circum- 


THE  REBELLION.  123 

stances!  Far  truer,  at  least  to  nature  and  to 
some  conceivable  theory  of  an  immortal  soul  in 
man,  is  the  method  of  the  poet,  who  makes  his 
personages  luminous  from  within  by  an  instinc 
tive  sympathy  with  human  motives  of  action,  and 
a  conception  of  the  essential  unity  of  character 
through  every  change  of  fate. 

Of  late  years  men  have  begun  to  question  the 
prescriptive  right  of  this  "great  gyant  Asdryas- 
dust,  who  has  choked  many  men,"  to  choke  them 
also  because  he  had  worked  his  wicked  will  on  their 
fathers.  It  occurred  to  an  inquiring  mind  here  and 
there  that  if  the  representation  of  men's  action 
and  passion  on  the  theatre  could  be  made  interest 
ing,  there  was  no  good  reason  why  the  great  drama 
of  history  should  be  dull  as  a  miracle-play.  Need 
philosophy  teaching  by  example  be  so  tiresome  that 
the  pupils  would  rather  burst  in  ignorance  than  go 
within  earshot  of  the  pedagogue  ?  Hence  the  his 
torical  romance,  sometimes  honestly  called  so,  and 
limited  by  custom  in  number  of  volumes ;  sometimes 
not  called  so,  and  without  any  such  limitation. 
This  latter  variety  admits  several  styles  of  treat 
ment.  Sometimes  a  special  epoch  is  chosen,  where 
one  heroic  figure  may  serve  as  a  centre  round  which 
events  and  subordinate  characters  group  themselves, 
with  no  more  sacrifice  of  truth  than  is  absolutely 
demanded  by  artistic  keeping.  This  may  be  called 
the  epic  style,  of  which  Carlyle  is  the  acknowledged 
master.  Sometimes  a  period  is  selected,  where  the 
facts,  by  coloring  and  arrangement,  may  be  made 
to  support  the  views  of  a  party,  and  history  becomes 


124  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

a  political  pamphlet  indefinitely  prolonged.  Here 
point  is  the  one  thing  needful,  —  to  be  attained  at 
all  hazards,  whether  by  the  turn  of  a  sentence  or 
the  twisting  of  a  motive.  Macaulay  is  preeminent 
in  this  kind,  and  woe  to  the  party  or  the  man  that 
comes  between  him  and  his  epigrammatic  neces 
sity  !  Again,  there  is  the  new  light,  or  perhaps, 
more  properly,  the  forlorn-hope  method,  where  the 
i author  accepts  a  brief  against  the  advocatus  dia- 
boli,  and  strives  to  win  a  reverse  of  judgment,  as 
Mr.  Froude  has  done  in  the  case  of  Henry  VIII. 
The  latest  fashion  of  all  is  the  a  priori,  in  which 
a  certain  dominant  principle  is  taken  for  granted, 
and  everything  is  deduced  from  '35,  instead  of  serv 
ing  to  prove  what  x  may  really  be.  The  weakness 
of  this  heroic  treatment,  it  seems  to  us,  is  in  allow 
ing  too  little  to  human  nature  as  an  element  in  the 
problem.  This  would  be  a  fine  world,  if  facts 
would  only  be  as  subservient  to  theory  in  real  life 
as  in  the  author's  inkstand.  Mr.  Buckle  stands  at 
the  head  of  this  school,  and  has  just  found  a  worthy 
disciple  in  M.  Taine,  who,  in  his  Histoire  de  la 
Litterature  Anglaise,  having  first  assumed  certain 
ethnological  postulates,  seems  rather  to  shape  the 
character  of  the  literature  to  the  race  than  to  illus 
trate  that  of  the  race  by  the  literature. 

In  short,  whether  we  consider  the  incompetence 
of  men  in  general  as  observers,  their  carelessness 
about  things  at  the  moment  indifferent,  but  which 
may  become  of  consequence  hereafter  (as,  for 
example,  in  the  dating  of  letters),  their  want  of 
impartiality,  both  in  seeing  and  stating  occurrences 


THE  REBELLION.  125 

and  in  tracing  or  attributing  motives,  it  is  plain 
that  history  is  not  to  be  depended  on  in  any  ab 
solute  sense.  That  smooth  and  indifferent  quality 
of  mind,  without  a  flaw  of  prejudice  or  a  blur  of 
theory,  which  can  reflect  passing  events  as  they 
truly  are,  is  as  rare,  if  not  so  precious,  as  that 
artistic  sense  which  can  hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature.  The  fact  that  there  is  so  little  historical 
or  political  prescience,  that  no  man  of  experience 
ventures  to  prophesy,  is  enough  to  prove,  either 
that  it  is  impossible  to  know  all  the  terms  of  our 
problem,  or  that  history  does  not  repeat  itself  with 
anything  like  the  exactness  of  coincidence  which  is 
so  pleasing  to  the  imagination.  Six  months  after 
the  coup  d'etat  of  December,  1851,  Mr.  Savage 
Landor,  who  knew  him  well,  said  to  us  that  Louis 
Napoleon  had  ten  times  the  political  sagacity  of 
his  uncle ;  but  who  foresaw  or  foretold  an  Augustus 
in  the  dull-eyed  frequenter  of  Lady  Blessington's, 
the  melodramatic  hero  of  Strasburg  and  Bologne, 
with  his  cocked  hat  and  his  eagle  from  Astley's  ? 
What  insurance  company  would  have  taken  the 
risk  of  his  hare-brained  adventure  ?  Coleridge 
used  to  take  credit  to  himself  for  certain  lucky 
vaticinations,  but  his  memory  was  always  inexact, 
his  confounding  of  what  he  did  and  what  he 
thought  he  meant  to  do  always  to  be  suspected, 
and  his  prophecies,  when  examined,  are  hardly 
more  precise  than  an  ancient  oracle  or  a  couplet 
of  Nostradamus.  The  almanac-makers  took  the 
wisest  course,  stretching  through  a  whole  month 
their  il  about  this  time  expect  a  change  of  weather." 


126  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

That  history  repeats  itself  has  become  a  kind  of 
truism,  but  of  as  little  practical  value  in  helping 
us  to  form  our  opinions  as  other  similar  labor-sav 
ing  expedients  to  escape  thought.  Sceptical  minds 
see  in  human  affairs  a  regular  oscillation,  hopeful 
ones  a  continual  progress,  and  both  can  support 
their  creeds  with  abundance  of  pertinent  example. 
Both  seem  to  admit  a  law  of  recurrence,  but  the 
former  make  it  act  in  a  circle,  the  latter  in  a  spiral. 
There  is,  no  doubt,  one  constant  element  in  the 
reckoning,  namely,  human  nature,  and  perhaps  an 
other  in  human  nature  itself,  —  the  tendency  to 
reaction  from  all  extremes ;  but  the  way  in  which 
these  shall  operate,  and  the  force  they  shall  exert, 
are  dependent  on  a  multitude  of  new  and  impredi-  - 
cable  circumstances.  Coincidences  there  certainly 
are,  but  our  records  are  hardly  yet  long  enough  to 
furnish  the  basis  for  secure  induction.  Such  par 
allelisms  are  merely  curious,  and  entertain  the 
fancy  rather  than  supply  precedent  for  the  judg 
ment.  When  Tacitus  tells  us  that  gladiators  have 
not  so  much  stomach  for  fighting  as  soldiers,  we 
remember  our  own  roughs  and  shoulder-hitters  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  are  inclined  to  think 
that  Macer  and  Billy  Wilson  illustrated  a  general 
truth.  But,  unfortunately,  Octavius  found  prize 
fighters  of  another  metal,  not  to  speak  of  Sparta- 
cus.  Perhaps  the  objections  to  our  making  use  of 
colored  soldiers  Qiic  niger  est,  hunc  tu,  Romane, 
caveto')  will  seem  as  absurd  one  of  these  days  as 
the  outcry  that  Caesar  was  degrading  the  service 
by  enlisting  Gauls;  but  we  will  not  hazard  a 


THE  REBELLION.  127 

prophecy.  In  the  alarm  of  the  Pannonian  revolt, 
his  nephew  recruited  the  army  of  Italy  by  a  con 
scription  of  slaves,  who  thereby  became  free,  and 
this  measure  seems  to  have  been  acquiesced  in  by 
the  unwarlike  citizens,  who  preferred  that  the  ex 
periment  of  death  should  be  made  in  corpore  vili 
rather  than  in  their  own  persons. 

If  the  analogies  between  past  and  present  were 
as  precise  as  they  are  sometimes  represented  to  be, 
if  Time  really  dotes  and  repeats  his  old  stories, 
then  ought  students  of  history  to  be  the  best  states 
men.  Yet,  with  Guizot  for  an  adviser,  Louis 
Philippe,  himself  the  eyewitness  of  two  revolutions, 
became  the  easy  victim  of  a  third.  Reasoning 
from  what  has  been  to  what  will  be  is  apt  to  be 
paralogistic  at  the  best.  Much  influence  must 
still  be  left  to  chance,  much  accounted  for  by  what 
pagans  called  Fate,  and  we  Providence.  We  can 
only  say,  Victrix  causa  diis  placuit,  and  Cato 
must  make  the  best  of  it.  What  is  called  poetical 
justice,  that  is,  an  exact  subservience  of  human 
fortunes  to  moral  laws,  so  that  the  actual  becomes 
the  liege  vassal  of  the  ideal,  is  so  seldom  seen  in 
the  events  of  real  life  that  even  the  gentile  world 
felt  the  need  of  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  pun 
ishments  to  make  the  scale  of  Divine  justice  even, 
and  satisfy  the  cravings  of  the  soul.  Our  sense  of 
right,  or  of  what  we  believe  to  be  right,  is  so 
pleased  with  an  example  of  retribution  that  a 
single  instance  is  allowed  to  outweigh  the  many  in 
which  wrong  escapes  un whipped.  It  was  remarked 
that  sudden  death  overtook  the  purchasers  of  cer- 


128  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

tain  property  bequeathed  for  pious  uses  in  Eng 
land,  and  sequestered  at  the  Reformation.  Fuller 
tells  of  a  Sir  Miles  Pateridge,  who  threw  dice  with 
the  king  for  Jesus'  bells,  and  how  "  the  ropes  after 
catched  about  his  neck,"  he  being  hanged  in  the 
reign  of  Edward  VI.  But  at  least  a  fifth  of  the 
land  in  England  was  held  by  suppressed  monas 
teries,  and  the  metal  for  the  victorious  cannon  of 
revolutionary  France  once  called  to  the  service  of 
the  Prince  of  Peace  from  consecrated  spires.  We 
err  in  looking  for  a  visible  and  material  penalty, 
as  if  God  imposed  a  fine  of  mishap  for  the  breach 
of  his  statutes.  Seldom,  says  Horace,  has  penalty 
lost  the  scent  of  crime,  yet,  on  second  thought,  he 
makes  the  sleuth-hound  lame.  Slow  seems  the 
sword  of  Divine  justice,  adds  Dante,  to  him  who 
longs  to  see  it  smite.  The  cry  of  all  generations 
has  been,  "  How  long,-  O  Lord  ?  "  Where  crime 
has  its  root  in  weakness  of  character,  that  same 
weakness  is  likely  to  play  the  avenger  ;  but  where 
it  springs  from  that  indifference  as  to  means  and 
that  contempt  of  consequences  which  are  likely  to 
be  felt  by  a  strong  nature,  intent  upon  its  end,  it 
would  be  hardy  to  reckon  on  the  same  dramatic 
result.  And  if  we  find  this  difficulty  in  the  cases 
of  individual  men,  it  is  even  more  rash  to  personify 
nations,  and  deal  out  to  them  our  little  vials  of 
Divine  retribution,  as  if  we  were  the  general  dis~ 
pensaries  of  doom.  Shall  we  lay  to  a  nation  the 
sins  of  a  line  of  despots  whom  it  cannot  shake  off  ? 
If  we  accept  too  blindly  the  theory  of  national 
responsibility,  we  ought,  by  parity  of  reason,  to 


THE  REBELLION.  129 

admit  success  as  a  valid  proof  of  right.  The  mor 
alists  of  fifty  years  ago,  who  saw  the  democratic 
orgies  of  France  punished  with  Napoleon,  whose 
own  crimes  brought  him  in  turn  to  the  rock  of  Pro 
metheus,  how  would  they  explain  the  phenomenon 
of  Napoleon  III.  ?  The  readiness  to  trace  a  too 
close  and  consequent  relation  between  public  delin 
quencies  and  temporal  judgments  seems  to  us  a 
superstition  holding  over  from  the  time  when  each 
race,  each  family  even,  had  its  private  and  tute 
lary  divinity,  —  a  mere  refinement  of  fetichism. 
The  world  has  too  often  seen  "  captive  good  attend 
ing  captain  ill "  to  believe  in  a  providence  that 
sets  man-traps  and  spring-guns  for  the  trespassers 
on  its  domain,  and  Christianity,  perhaps,  elevated 
man  in  no  way  so  much  as  in  making  every  one 
personally,  not  gregariously,  answerable  for  his 
doings  or  not-doings,  and  thus  inventing  con 
science,  as  we  understand  its  meaning.  But  just 
in  proportion  as  the  private  citizen  is  enlightened 
does  he  become  capable  of  an  influence  on  that 
manifold  result  of  thought,  sentiment,  reason,  im 
pulse,  magnanimity,  and  meanness  which,  as  Pub 
lic  Opinion,  has  now  so  great  a  share  in  shaping 
the  destiny  of  nations.  And  in  this  sense  does  he 
become  responsible,  and  out  of  the  aggregate  of 
such  individual  responsibilities  we  can  assume  a 
common  complicity  in  the  guilt  of  common  wrong 
doing. 

But  surely  the  Lord  God  Omnipotent  reigneth  ; 
and  though  we  do  not  believe  in  his  so  immediate 
interference  in  events  as  would  satisfy  our  impa- 


130  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

tience  of  injustice,  yet  he  achieves  his  ends  and 
brings  about  his  compensations  by  having  made 
Good  infinitely  and  eternally  lovely  to  the  soul  of 
man,  while  the  beauty  of  Evil  is  but  a  brief  cheat, 
which  their  own  lusts  put  upon  the  senses  of  her 
victims.  And  it  is  surely  fixed  as  the  foundations 
of  the  earth  that  faithfulness  to  right  and  duty, 
self-sacrifice,  loyalty  to  that  service  whose  visible 
reward  is  often  but  suffering  and  baffled  hope, 
draw  strength  and  succor  from  exhaustless  springs 
far  up  in  those  Delectable  Mountains  of  trial  which 
the  All-knowing  has  set  between  us  and  the  achieve 
ment  of  every  noble  purpose.  History  teaches,  at 
least,  that  wrong  can  reckon  on  no  alliance  with 
the  diviner  part  of  man,  while  every  high  example 
of  virtue,  though  it  led  to  the  stake  or  the  scaf 
fold,  becomes  a  part  of  the  reserved  force  of  hu 
manity,  and  from  generation  to  generation  summons 
kindred  natures  to  the  standard  of  righteousness 
as  with  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  There  is  no  such 
reinforcement  as  faith  in  God,  and  that  faith  is 
impossible  till  we  have  squared  our  policy  and  con 
duct  with  our  highest  instincts.  In  the  loom  of 
time,  though  the  woof  be  divinely  foreordained, 
yet  man  supplies  the  weft,  and  the  figures  of  the 
endless  web  are  shaped  and  colored  by  our  own 
wisdom  or  folly.  Let  no  nation  think  itself  safe 
in  being  merely  right,  unless  its  captains  are  in 
spired  and  sustained  by  a  sense  thereof. 

We  do  not  believe  that  history  supplies  any 
trustworthy  data  for  casting  the  horoscope  of  our 
war.  America  is  something  without  precedent. 


THE  REBELLION.  131 

Moreover,  such  changes  have  been  going  on  in  the 
social  and  moral  condition  of  nations  as  to  make 
the  lessons  of  even  comparatively  recent  times  of 
little  import  in  forming  conclusions  on  contem 
porary  affairs.  Formerly  a  fact,  not  yet  forgetful 
of  its  etymology,  was  a  thing  done,  a  deed,  and  in 
a  certain  sense  implied,  truly  enough,  the  predomi 
nance  of  individual  actors  and  prevailing  charac 
ters.  But  powerful  personalities  are  becoming  of 
less  and  less  account,  when  facility  of  communica 
tion  has  given  both  force  and  the  means  of  exert 
ing  it  to  the  sentiment  of  civilized  mankind,  and 
when  commerce  has  made  the  banker's  strong-box 
a  true  temple  of  Janus,  the  shutting  or  opening  of 
which  means  peace  or  war.  Battles  are  decisive 
now  not  so  much  by  the  destruction  of  armies  as 
by  the  defeat  of  public  spirit,  and  a  something 
that  has  actually  happened  may  be  a  less  important 
fact,  either  in  conjecturing  probabilities  or  deter 
mining  policy,  than  the  indefinable  progress  of 
change,  not  marked  on  any  dial,  but  instinctively 
divined,  that  is  taking  place  in  the  general 
thought. 

The  history  of  no  civil  war  can  be  written  with 
out  bias,  scarcely  without  passionate  prejudice.  It 
is  always  hard  for  men  to  conceive  the  honesty  or 
intelligence  of  those  who  hold  other  opinions,  or 
indeed  to  allow  them  the  right  to  think  for  them 
selves  ;  but  in  troubled  times  the  blood  mounts  to 
the  head,  and  colors  the  judgment,  giving  to  sus 
picions  and  fancies  the  force  of  realities,  and  in 
tensifying  personal  predilections,  till  they  seem  the 


132  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

pith  and  substance  of  national  duties.  Even  where 
the  office  of  historian  is  assumed  in  the  fairest 
temper,  it  is  impossible  that  the  narrative  of  events 
whose  bearing  is  so  momentous  should  not  insen 
sibly  take  somewhat  the  form  of  an  argument,  — 
that  the  political  sympathies  of  the  author  should 
not  affect  his  judgment  of  men  and  measures.  And 
in  such  conflicts,  far  more  than  in  ordinary  times, 
as  the  stake  at  issue  is  more  absorbing  and  appeals 
more  directly  to  every  private  interest  and  patriotic 
sentiment,  so  men,  as  they  become  prominent,  and 
more  or  less  identified  with  this  or  that  policy,  at 
last  take  the  place  of  principles  with  the  majority 
of  minds.  To  agree  with  us  is  to  be  a  great  com 
mander,  a  prudent  administrator,  a  politician  with 
out  private  ends. 

The  contrast  between  the  works  of  Mr.  Pollard l 
and  Mr.  Greeley  2  is  very  striking.  Though  coin 
cident  in  design,  they  are  the  antipodes  of  each 
other  in  treatment.  Mr.  Greeley,  finding  a  coun 
try  beyond  measure  prosperous  suddenly  assailed 
by  rebellion,  is  naturally  led  to  seek  an  adequate 
cause  for  so  abnormal  an  effect.  Mr.  Pollard, 
formerly  an  office-holder  under  the  United  States, 
and  now  the  editor  of  a  Richmond  newspaper,  is 
struck  by  the  same  reflection,  and,  unwilling  to 
state  the  true  cause,  or  unable  to  find  a  plausible 
reason,  is  driven  to  hunt  up  an  excuse  for  what 
strikes  ordinary  people  as  one  of  the  greatest  crimes 
in  history.  The  difference  is  instructive. 

1  The  Southern  History  of  the  War.     The  First  Year  of  the  War. 
By  Edward  A.  Pollard. 

2  The  American  Conflict.     By  Horace  Greeley.     Vol.  I. 


THE  REBELLION.  133 

Mr.  Pollard's  book,  however,  is  well  worth  read 
ing  by  those  who  wish  to  learn  something  of  the 
motives  which  originally  led  the  Southern  States 
into  rebellion,  and  still  actuate  them  in  their  ob 
stinate  resistance.  To  any  one  familiar  with  the 
history  of  the  last  thirty  years,  it  would  almost 
seem  that  Mr.  Pollard's  object  had  been  to  expose 
the  futility  of  the  pretences  set  up  by  the  origina 
tors  of  Secession,  so  utterly  does  he  fail  in  showing 
any  adequate  grounds  for  that  desperate  measure. 
As  a  history,  the  book  is  of  little  value,  except  as 
giving  us  here  and  there  a  hint  by  which  we  can 
guess  something  of  the  state  of  mind  prevailing  at 
the  South.  In  point  of  style  it  is  a  curious  jumble 
of  American  sense  and  Southern  highfaluting \ 
One  might  fancy  it  written  by  a  schoolmaster, 
whose  boys  had  got  hold  of  the  manuscript,  and 
inserted  here  and  there  passages  taken  at  random 
from  the  Gems  of  Irish  Oratory.  Mr.  Pollard's 
notions  of  the  "  Yankees,"  and  the  condition  of 
things  among  them,  would  be  creditable  to  a  Chi 
naman  from  pretty  well  up  in  the  back  country. 
No  society  could  hold  together  for  a  moment  in  the 
condition  of  moral  decay  which  he  attributes  to  the 
Northern  States.  Before  writing  his  next  volume 
he  should  read  Charles  Lamb's  advice  "  to  those  who 
have  the  framing  of  advertisements  for  the  appre 
hension  of  offenders."  We  must  do  him  the  justice 
to  say,  however,  that  he  writes  no  nonsense  about 
difference  of  races,  and  that,  of  all  "  Yankees," 
he  most  thoroughly  despises  the  Northern  snob  who 
professes  a  sympathy  for  "  Southern  institutions  " 


134  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

because  lie  believes  that  a  slaveholder  is  a  better 
man  than  himself. 

In  narrating  the  causes  which  brought  about 
the  present  state  of  things,  Mr.  Pollard  arranges 
matters  to  suit  his  own  convenience,  constantly 
reversing  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect,  and 
forgetting  that  the  order  of  events  is  of  every  im 
portance  in  estimating  their  moral  bearing..  The 
only  theoretic  reason  he  gives  for  Secession  is  the 
desire  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  a  "  numerical 
majority."  Yet  it  was  by  precisely  such  a  ma 
jority,  and  that  attained  by  force  or  fraud,  that  the 
seceding  States  were  taken  out  of  the  Union.  We 
entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Pollard  that  a  show  of 
hands  is  no  test  of  truth ;  but  he  seems  to  forget 
that,  except  under  a  despotism,  a  numerical  ma 
jority  of  some  sort  or  other  is  sure  to  govern.  No 
man  capable  of  thought,  as  Mr.  Pollard  certainly 
is,  would  admit  that  a  majority  was  any  more 
likely  to  be  right  under  a  system  of  limited  than 
under  one  of  universal  suffrage,  always  provided 
the  said  majority  did  not  express  his  own  opinions. 
The  majority  always  governs  in  the  long  run,  be 
cause  it  comes  gradually  round  to  the  side  of  what  is 
just  and  for  the  common  interest,  and  the  only  dan 
gerous  majority  is  that  of  a  mob  unchecked  by  the 
delay  for  reflection  which  all  constitutional  govern 
ment  interposes.  The  constitutions  of  most  of  the 
Slave  States,  so  far  as  white  men  are  concerned, 
are  of  the  most  intensely  democratic  type.  Would 
Mr.  Pollard  consolidate  them  all  under  one  strong 
government,  or  does  he  believe  that  to  be  good  for 


THE  REBELLION.  135 

a  single  State  which  is  bad  for  many  united  ?  It 
is  curious  to  see,  in  his  own  intense  antipathy  to  a 
slaveholding  aristocracy,  how  purely  American  he 
is  in  spite  of  his  theories ;  and,  bitterly  hostile  as 
he  is  to  the  Davis  administration,  he  may  chance 
on  the  reflection  that  a  majority  is  pretty  much 
the  same  thing  in  one  parallel  of  latitude  as  an 
other.  Of  one  thing  he  may  be  assured,  —  that 
we  of  the  North  do  not  understand  by  republic  a 
government  of  the  better  and  more  intelligent  class 
by  the  worse  and  more  ignorant,  and  accordingly 
are  doing  our  best  by  education  to  abolish  the  dis 
tinction  between  the  two. 

The  fact  that  no  adequate  reasons  for  Secession 
have  ever  been  brought  forward,  either  by  the 
seceding  States  at  the  time,  or  by  their  apologists 
since,  can  only  be  explained  on  the  theory  that 
nothing  more  than  a  coup  d'etat  was  intended, 
which  should  put  the  South  in  possession  of  the 
government.  Owing  to  the  wretched  policy  (if 
supineness  deserve  the  name)  largely  prevalent  in 
the  North,  of  sending  to  the  lower  house  of  Con 
gress  the  men  who  needed  rather  than  those  who 
ought  to  go  there,  —  men  without  the  responsibility 
or  the  independence  which  only  established  repu 
tation,  social  position,  long  converse  with  great 
questions,  or  native  strength  of  character  can  give, 
—  and  to  the  habit  of  looking  on  a  seat  in  the 
national  legislature  more  as  the  reward  for  partisan 
activity  than  as  imposing  a  service  of  the  highest 
nature,  so  that  representatives  were  changed  as 
often  as  there  were  new  political  debts  to  pay  or 


136  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

cliques  to  be  conciliated,  —  owing  to  these  things, 
the  South  maintained  an  easy  superiority  at  Wash 
ington,  and  learned  to  measure  the  Free  States  by 
men  who  represented  their  weakest,  and  sometimes 
their  least  honorable,  characteristics.  We  doubt  if 
the  Slave  States  have  sent  many  men  to  the  Capi 
tol  who  could  be  bought,  while  it  is  notorious  that 
from  the  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  many 
an  M.  C.  has  cleared,  like  a  ship,  for  Washington 
and  a  market.  Southern  politicians  judge  the 
North  by  men  without  courage  and  without  princi 
ple,  who  would  consent  to  any  measure  if  it  could 
be  becomingly  draped  in  generalities,  or  if  they 
could  evade  the  pillory  of  the  yeas  and  nays.  The 
increasing  drain  of  forensic  ability  toward  the  large 
cities,  with  the  mistaken  theory  that  residence  in 
the  district  was  a  necessary  qualification  in  candi 
dates,  tended  still  more  to  bring  down  the  average 
of  Northern  representation.  The  "claims"  of  a 
section  of  the  State,  or  even  part  of  a  district, 
have  been  allowed  to  have  weight,  as  if  square 
miles  or  acres  were  to  be  weighed  against  capacity 
and  experience.  We  attached  too  little  importance 
to  the  social  prestige  which  the  South  acquired  and 
maintained  at  the  seat  of  government,  forgetting 
the  necessary  influence  it  would  exert  upon  the  in 
dependence  of  many  of  our  own  members.  These 
in  turn  brought  home  the  new  impressions  they  had 
acquired,  till  the  fallacy  gradually  became  con 
viction  of  a  general  superiority  in  the  South, 
though  it  had  only  so  much  truth  in  it  as  this, 
that  the  people  of  that  section  sent  their  men  of 


THE  REBELLION.  137 

character  and  position  to  Washington,  and  kept 
them  there  till  every  year  of  experience  added  an 
efficiency  which  more  than  made  up  for  their 
numerical  inferiority.  Meanwhile,  our  thinking 
men  allowed,  whether  from  timidity  or  contempt, 
certain  demagogic  fallacies  to  become  axioms  by 
dint  of  repetition,  chief  among  which  was  the 
notion  that  a  man  was  the  better  representative  of 
the  democratic  principle  who  had  contrived  to  push 
himself  forward  to  popularity  by  whatever  means, 
and  who  represented  the  average  instead  of  the 
highest  culture  of  the  community,  thus  establishing 
an  aristocracy  of  mediocrity,  nay,  even  of  vulgarity, 
in  some  less  intelligent  constituencies.  The  one 
great  strength  of  democracy  is,  that  it  opens  all 
the  highways  of  power  and  station  to  the  better 
man,  that  it  gives  every  man  the  chance  of  rising 
to  his  natural  level ;  and  its  great  weakness  is  in  its 
tendency  to  urge  this  principle  to  a  vicious  excess, 
by  pushing  men  forward  into  positions  for  which 
they  are  unfit,  not  so  much  because  they  deserve 
to  rise,  or  because  they  have  risen  by  great  quali 
ties,  as  because  they  began  low.  Our  quadrennial 
change  of  offices,  which  turns  public  service  into 
a  matter  of  bargain  and  sale  instead  of  the  reward 
of  merit  and  capacity,  which  sends  men  to  Con 
gress  to  represent  private  interests  in  the  sharing 
of  plunder,  without  regard  to  any  claims  of  states 
manship  or  questions  of  national  policy,  as  if  the 
ship  of  state  were  periodically  captured  by  priva 
teers,  has  hastened  our  downward  progress  in  the 
evil  way.  By  making  the  administration  promi- 


138  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

nent  at  the  cost  of  the  government,  and  by  its 
constant  lesson  of  scramble  and  vicissitude,  almost 
obliterating  the  idea  of  orderly  permanence,  it  has 
tended  in  no  small  measure  to  make  disruption 
possible,  for  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  threw  the 
weight  of  every  office-holder  in  the  South  into  the 
scale  of  Secession.  The  war,  however,  has  proved 
that  the  core  of  Democracy  was  sound;  that  the 
people,  if  they  had  been  neglectful  of  their  duties, 
or  had  misapprehended  them,  had  not  become 
corrupt. 

Mr.  Greeley's  volume  is  a  valuable  contribution 
to  our  political  history.  Though  for  many  years 
well  known  as  an  ardent  politician,  and  associated 
by  popular  prejudice  with  that  class  of  untried 
social  theories  which  are  known  by  the  name  of 
isms,  his  tone  is  singularly  calm  and  dispassionate. 
Disfigured  here  and  there  by  a  vulgarism  which 
adds  nothing  to  its  point,  while  it  detracts  from 
its  purity,  his  style  is  clear,  straightforward, 
and  masculine,  —  a  good  business  style,  at  once 
bare  of  ornament  and  undiluted  with  eloquence. 
Mr.  Greeley's  intimate  knowledge  of  our  politics 
and  instinctive  sympathy  with  the  far-reaching 
scope  of  our  institutions  (for,  as  B^ranger  said  of 
himself,  he  is  tout  peuple)  admirably  fitted  him 
for  his  task.  He  is  clear,  concise,  and  accurate, 
honestly  striving  after  the  truth,  while  his  judi 
cious  Preface  shows  that  he  appreciates  fully  the 
difficulties  that  beset  whoever  seeks  to  find  it.  If 
none  of  his  readers  will  be  surprised  to  find  his 
work  that  of  an  able  man,  there  are  many  who 


THE  REBELLION.  139 

would  not  expect  it  to  be,  as  it  is,  that  of  a  fair- 
minded  one.  He  writes  without  passion,  making 
due  allowance  for  human  nature  in  the  South  as 
well  as  the  North,  and  does  not  waste  his  strength, 
as  is  the  manner  of  fanatics,  in  fighting  imaginary 
giants  while  a  real  enemy  is  in  the  field.  Tracing 
Secession  to  its  twin  sources  in  slavery  and  the 
doctrine  of  State  Rights,  and  amply  sustaining  his 
statements  of  fact  by  citations  from  contemporary 
documents  and  speeches,  he  has  made  the  plainest, 
and  for  that  very  reason,  we  think,  the  strongest, 
argument  that  has  been  put  forth  on  the  national 
side  of  the  question  at  issue  in  our  civil  war. 
Above  all,  he  is  ready  to  allow  those  virtues  in  the 
character  of  the  Southern  people  whose  existence 
alone  makes  reunion  desirable  or  possible.  We 
should  not  forget  that  the  Negro  is  at  least  no  more 
our  brother  than  they,  for  if  he  have  fallen  among 
thieves  who  have  robbed  him  of  his  manhood,  they 
have  been  equally  enslaved  by  prejudice,  ignorance, 
and  social  inferiority. 

It  is  not  a  little  singular  that,  while  slavery  has 
been  for  nearly  eighty  years  the  one  root  of  bitter 
ness  in  our  politics,  the  general  knowledge  of  its 
history  should  be  so  superficial.  Abolitionism  has 
been  so  persistently  represented  as  the  disturbing 
element  which  threatened  the  permanence  of  our 
Union,  that  mere  repetition  has  at  last  become 
conviction  with  that  large  class  of  minds  with 
which  a  conclusion  is  valuable  exactly  in  propor 
tion  as  it  saves  mental  labor.  Mr.  Greeley's 
chronological  narrative  is  an  excellent  corrective  of 


140  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

this  delusion,  and  his  tough  little  facts,  driven 
firmly  home,  will  serve  to  spike  this  parrot  battery, 
and  render  it  harmless  for  the  future.  A  consecu 
tive  statement  of  such  of  the  events  in  our  history 
as  bear  directly  on  the  question  of  slavery,  sepa 
rated  from  all  secondary  circumstances,  shows  two 
things  clearly  :  first,  that  the  doctrine  that  there 
was  any  national  obligation  to  consider  slaves  as 
merely  property,  or  to  hold  our  tongues  about 
slavery,  is  of  comparatively  recent  origin ;  and, 
second,  that  there  was  a  pretty  uniform  ebb  of 
anti-slavery  sentiment  for  nearly  sixty  years  after 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  the  young  flood 
beginning  to  set  strongly  in  again  after  the  full 
meaning  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  began  to  be 
understood  at  the  North,  but  not  fairly  filling  up 
again  even  its  own  deserted  channels  till  the  South 
ern  party  succeeded  in  cutting  the  embankment  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise.  Then  at  last  it  became 
evident  that  the  real  danger  to  be  guarded  against 
was  the  abolition  of  Freedom,  and  the  reaction  was 
as  violent  as  it  was  sudden. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Republic,  slavery  was 
admitted  to  be  a  social  and  moral  evil,  only  to  be 
justified  by  necessity ;  and  we  think  it  more  than 
doubtful  if  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  could  have 
procured  an  extension  of  the  slave-trade,  had  there 
not  been  a  general  persuasion  that  the  whole  sys 
tem  could  not  long  maintain  itself  against  the 
growth  of  intelligence  and  humanity.  As  early  as 
1786  a  resident  of  South  Carolina  wrote :  "  In 
countries  where  slavery  is  encouraged,  the  ideas  of 


THE  REBELLION.  141 

the  people  are  of  a  peculiar  cast ;  the  soul  becomes 
dark  and  narrow,  and  assumes  a  tone  of  savage 
brutality.  .  .  .  The  most  elevated  and  liberal  Car 
olinians  abhor  slavery  ;  they  will  not  debase  them 
selves  by  attempting  to  vindicate  it."  In  1789 
William  Pinckney  said,  in  the  Maryland  Assem 
bly  :  "  Sir,  by  the  eternal  principles  of  natural  jus 
tice,  no  master  in  the  State  has  a  right  to  hold  his 
slave  in  bondage  for  a  single  hour."  And  he  went 
on  to  speak  of  slavery  in  a  way  which,  fifty  years 
later,  would  have  earned  him  a  coat  of  tar  and 
feathers,  if  not  a  halter,  in  any  of  the  Slave  States, 
and  in  some  of  the  Free.  In  1787  Delaware 
passed  an  act  forbidding  the  importation  of  "  negro 
or  mulatto  slaves  into  the  State  for  sale  or  other 
wise  ; "  and  three  years  later  her  courts  declared  a 
slave,  hired  in  Maryland  and  brought  over  the  bor 
der,  free  under  this  statute.  In  1790  there  were 
Abolition  societies  in  Maryland  and  Virginia.  In 
1787  the  Synod  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  (since 
called  the  General  Assembly),  in  their  pastoral 
letter,  "strongly  recommended  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  with  the  instruction  of  the  negroes  in  liter 
ature  and  religion."  We  cite  these  instances  to 
show  that  the  sacredness  of  slavery  from  discussion 
was  a  discovery  of  much  later  date.  So  also  was 
the  theory  of  its  divine  origin,  —  a  theological 
slough  in  which,  we  are  sorry  to  say,  Northern  men 
have  shown  themselves  readiest  to  bemire  them 
selves.  It  was  when  slave  labor  and  slave  breed 
ing  began  to  bring  large  and  rapid  profits,  by  the 
extension  of  cotton-culture  consequent  on  the  in- 


142  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

vention  of  Whitney's  gin,  and  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana,  that  slavery  was  found  to  be  identical 
with  religion,  and,  like  Duty,  a  "  daughter  of  the 
voice  of  God."  Till  it  became  rich,  it  had  been 
content  with  claiming  the  municipal  law  for  its 
parent,  but  now  it  was  easy  to  find  heralds  who 
could  blazon  for  it  a  nobler  pedigree.  Men  who 
looked  upon  dancing  as  sinful  could  see  the  very 
beauty  of  holiness  in  a  system  like  this !  It  is 
consoling  to  think  that,  even  in  England,  it  is  little 
more  than  a  century  since  the  divine  right  of  kings 
ceased  to  be  defended  in  the  same  way,  by  mak 
ing  the  narrative  portions  of  Scripture  doctrinal. 
Such  strange  things  have  been  found  in  the  Bible 
that  we  are  not  without  hope  of  the  discovery  of 
Christianity  there,  one  of  these  days. 

The  influence  of  the  Southern  States  in  the  na 
tional  politics  was  due  mainly  to  the  fact  of  their 
having  a  single  interest  on  which  they  were  all 
united,  and,  though  fond  of  contrasting  their  more 
chivalric  character  with  the  commercial  spirit  of 
the  North,  it  will  be  found  that  profit  has  been  the 
motive  to  all  the  encroachments  of  slavery.  These 
encroachments  first  assumed  the  offensive  with  the 
annexation  of  Texas.  In  the  admission  of  Mis 
souri,  though  the  Free  States  might  justly  claim  a 
right  to  fix  the  political  destiny  of  half  the  terri 
tory,  bought  with  the  common  money  of  the  nation, 
and  though  events  have  since  proved  that  the  com 
promise  of  1820  was  a  fatal  mistake,  yet,  as  sla 
very  was  already  established  there,  the  South  might, 
with  some  show  of  reason,  claim  to  be  on  the 


THE  REBELLION.  143 

defensive.  In  one  sense,  it  is  true,  every  enlarge 
ment  of  the  boundaries  of  slavery  has  been  an 
aggression.  For  it  cannot  with  any  fairness  be 
assumed  that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  in 
tended  to  foreordain  a  perpetual  balance  of  power 
between  the  Free  and  the  Slave  States.  If  they 
had,  it  is  morally  certain  that  they  would  not  so 
have  arranged  the  basis  of  representation  as  to  se 
cure  to  the  South  an  unfair  preponderance,  to  be 
increased  with  every  addition  of  territory.  It  is 
much  more  probable  that  they  expected  the  South 
ern  States  to  fall  more  and  more  into  a  minority 
of  population  and  wealth,  and  were  willing  to 
strengthen  this  minority  by  yielding  it  somewhat 
more  than  its  just  share  of  power  in  Congress.  In 
deed,  it  was  mainly  on  the  ground  of  the  undue 
advantage  which  the  South  would  gain,  politically, 
that  the  admission  of  Missouri  was  distasteful  to 
the  North. 

It  was  not  till  after  the  Southern  politicians  had 
firmly  established  their  system  of  governing  the 
country  by  an  alliance  with  the  Democratic  party 
of  the  Free  States,  on  the  basis  of  a  division  of 
offices,  that  they  dreamed  of  making  their  "  insti 
tution"  the  chief  concern  of  the  nation.  As  we 
follow  Mr.  Greeley's  narrative,  we  see  them  first 
pleading  for  the  existence  of  slavery,  then  for  its 
equality,  and  at  last  claiming  for  it  an  absolute  do 
minion.  Such  had  been  the  result  of  uniform  con 
cession  on  the  part  of  the  North  for  the  sake  of 
Union,  such  the  decline  of  public  spirit,  that  within 
sixty  years  of  the  time  when  slaveholders  like 


144  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

George  Mason  of  Virginia  could  denounce  slavery 
for  its  inconsistency  with  the  principles  on  which 
our  Revolution  had  triumphed,  the  leaders  of  a 
party  at  the  North  claiming  a  kind  of  patent  in 
the  rights  of  man  as  an  expedient  for  catching 
votes  were  decrying  the  doctrines  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  as  visionary  and  impractica 
ble.  Was  it  the  Slave  or  the  Free  States  that  had 
just  cause  to  be  alarmed  for  their  peculiar  institu 
tions  ?  And,  meanwhile,  it  had  been  discovered 
that  slavery  was  conservative  !  It  would  protect  a 
country  in  which  almost  every  voter  was  a  land 
holder  from  any  sudden  frenzy  of  agrarian  ism  ! 
In  the  South  it  certainly  conserved  a  privileged 
class,  and  prevented  a  general  debauch  of  educa 
tion  ;  but  in  the  North  it  preserved  nothing  but 
political  corruption,  subserviency,  cant,  and  all 
those  baser  qualities  which  unenviably  distinguish 
man  from  the  brutes. 

The  nation  had  paid  ten  millions  for  Texas,  an 
extension  of  the  area  of  freedom,  as  it  was  shame 
lessly  called,  which  was  to  raise  the  value  of  slaves 
in  Virginia,  according  to  Mr.  Upshur,  and  did 
raise  it,  fifty  per  cent.  It  was  next  proposed  to 
purchase  Cuba  for  one  hundred  millions,  or  to  take 
it  by  force  if  Spain  refused  to  sell.  And  all  this 
for  fear  of  abolition.  This  was  paying  rather  dearly 
for  our  conservative  element,  it  should  seem,  espe 
cially  when  it  stood  in  need  of  such  continual  and 
costly  conservation.  But  it  continued  to  be  plain 
to  a  majority  of  voters  that  democratic  institutions 
absolutely  demanded  a  safeguard  against  demo- 


THE  REBELLION.  145 

cracy,  and  that  the  only  insurance  was  something 
that  must  be  itself  constantly  insured  at  more  and 
more  ruinous  rates.  It  continued  to  be  plain  also 
that  slavery  was  purely  a  matter  of  local  concern, 
though  it  could  help  itself  to  the  national  money, 
force  the  nation  into  an  unjust  war,  and  stain  its 
reputation  in  Europe  with  the  buccaneering  prin 
ciples  proclaimed  in  the  Ostend  Manifesto.  All 
these  were  plainly  the  results  of  the  ever-increasing 
and  unprovoked  aggressions  of  Northern  fanati 
cism.  To  be  the  victims  of  such  injustice  seemed 
not  unpleasing  to  the  South.  Let  us  sum  up  the 
items  of  their  little  bill  against  us.  They  de 
manded  Missouri,  —  we  yielded ;  they  could  not 
get  along  without  Texas,  —  we  re-annexed  it ;  they 
must  have  a  more  stringent  fugitive-slave  law,  — 
we  gulped  it ;  they  must  no  longer  be  insulted  with 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  —  we  repealed  it.  Thus 
far  the  North  had  surely  been  faithful  to  the  terms 
of  the  bond.  We  had  paid  our  pound  of  flesh 
whenever  it  was  asked  for,  and  with  fewer  wry 
faces,  inasmuch  as  Brother  Ham  underwent  the  in 
cision.  Not  at  all.  We  had  only  surrendered  the 
principles  of  the  Revolution  ;  we  must  give  up  the 
theory  also,  if  we  would  be  loyal  to  the  Constitu 
tion. 

We  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  Greeley  that  the 
quibble  which  would  make  the  Constitution  an 
anti-slavery  document,  because  the  word  slave  is 
not  mentioned  in  it,  cannot  stand  a  moment  if  we 
consider  the  speeches  made  in  Convention,  or  the 
ideas  by  which  the  action  of  its  members  was 


146  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

guided.  But  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  Ter 
ritories  stands  on  wholly  different  ground.  We 
know  what  the  opinions  of  the  men  were  who 
drafted  the  Constitution,  by  their  own  procedure 
in  passing  the  Ordinance  of  1787.  That  the 
North  should  yield  all  claim  to  the  common  lands 
was  certainly  a  new  interpretation  of  constitutional 
law.  And  yet  this  was  practically  insisted  on  by 
the  South,  and  its  denial  was  the  more  immediate 
occasion  of  rupture  between  the  two  sections.  But, 
in  our  opinion,  the  real  cause  which  brought  the 
question  to  the  decision  of  war  was  the  habit  of 
concession  on  the  part  of  the  North,  and  the  inabil 
ity  of  its  representatives  to  say  JVb,  when  policy  as 
well  as  conscience  made  it  imperative.  Without 
that  confidence  in  Northern  pusillanimity  into 
which  the  South  had  been  educated  by  their  long 
experience  of  this  weakness,  whatever  might  have 
been  the  secret  wish  of  the  leading  plotters,  they 
would  never  have  dared  to  rush  their  fellow-citizens 
into  a  position  where  further  compromise  became 
impossible. 

Inextricably  confused  with  the  question  of  Sla 
very,  and  essential  to  an  understanding  of  the  mo 
tives  and  character  of  the  Southern  people  as  dis 
tinguished  from  their  politicians,  is  the  doctrine  of 
State  Rights.  On  this  topic  also  Mr.  Greeley  fur 
nishes  all  the  data  requisite  to  a  full  understanding 
of  the  matter.  The  dispute  resolves  itself  substan 
tially  into  this :  whether  the  adoption  of  the  Con 
stitution  established  a  union  or  a  confederacy,  a 
government  or  a  league,  a  nation  or  a  committee. 


THE  REBELLION.  147 

This  also  is  a  question  which  can  only  be  deter 
mined  by  a  knowledge  of  what  the  Convention  of 
1787  intended  and  accomplished,  and  the  States 
severally  acceded  to,  —  it  being  of  course  under 
stood  that  no  State  had  a  right,  or  at  the  time  pre 
tended  any  right,  to  accept  the  Constitution  with 
mental  reservations.  On  this  subject  we  have  am 
ple  and  unimpeachable  testimony  in  the  discussions 
which  led  to  the  calling  of  the  Convention,  and  the 
debates  which  followed  in  the  different  conventions 
of  the  States  called  together  to  decide  whether  the 
new  frame  of  government  should  be  accepted  or 
rejected.  The  conviction  that  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  remodel  the  Articles  of  Confederation 
was  wrought  wholly  by  an  experience  of  the  inade 
quacy  of  the  existing  plan  (under  which  a  single 
State  could  oppose  its  veto  to  a  law  of  Congress), 
from  the  looseness  of  its  cohesion  and  its  want  of 
power  to  compel  obedience.  The  principle  of  coer 
cive  authority,  which  was  represented  as  so  oppres 
sively  unconstitutional  by  the  friends  of  Secession 
in  the  North  as  well  as  the  South  four  years  ago, 
was  precisely  that  which,  as  its  absence  had 
brought  the  old  plan  to  a  dead-lock,  was  deemed 
essential  to  the  new.  The  formal  proposal  for  a 
convention,  originated  by  Hamilton,  was  seconded 
by  one  State  after  another.  Here  is  a  sample  of 
Virginian  public  sentiment  at  that  time,  from  the 
"  instructions  to  their  representatives,"  by  several 
constituencies  :  "  Government  without  coercion  is  a 
proposition  at  once  so  absurd  and  self-contradic 
tory  that  the  idea  creates  a  confusion  of  the  under- 


148  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

standing ;  it  is  form  without  substance,  at  best  a 
body  without  a  soul."  Oliver  Ellsworth,  advoca 
ting  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  the  Con 
vention  of  Connecticut,  says :  "  A  more  energetic 
system  is  necessary.  The  present  is  merely  advi 
sory.  It  has  no  coercive  power.  Without  this, 
government  is  ineffectual,  or  rather  is  no  govern 
ment  at  all."  Earlier  than  this  Madison  had 
claimed  "an  implied  right  of  coercion"  even  for 
the  Confederate  Congress,  and  Jefferson  had  gone 
so  far  as  to  say  that  they  possessed  it  "  by  the  law 
of  nature."  The  leading  objections  to  the  new 
Constitution  were  such  as  to  show  the  general  be 
lief  that  the  State  sovereignties  were  to  be  ab 
sorbed  into  the  general  government  in  all  matters 
of  national  concern.  But  the  unhappy  ingenuity 
of  Mr.  Jefferson  afterwards  devised  that  theory  of 
strict  construction  which  would  enable  any  State 
to  profit  by  the  powers  of  the  Constitution  so  long 
as  it  was  for  her  interest  or  convenience,  and  then, 
by  pleading  its  want  of  powers,  to  resolve  the  help 
less  organization  once  more  into  the  incoherence  of 
confederacy.  By  this  dexterous  legerdemain,  the 
Union  became  a  string  of  juggler's  rings,  which 
seems  a  chain  while  it  pleases  the  operator,  but 
which,  by  bringing  the  strain  on  the  weak  point 
contrived  for  the  purpose,  is  made  to  fall  easily 
asunder  and  become  separate  rings  again.  An 
adroit  use  of  this  theory  enabled  the  South  to  gain 
one  advantage  after  another  by  threatening  dis 
union,  and  led  naturally,  on  the  first  effective  show 
of  resistance,  to  secession.  But  in  order  that  the 


THE  REBELLION.  149 

threat  might  serve  its  purpose  without  the  costly 
necessity  of  putting  it  in  execution,  the  doctrine  of 
State  Eights  was  carefully  inculcated  at  the  South 
by  the  same  political  party  which  made  belief  in 
the  value  of  the  Union  a  fanaticism  at  the  North. 
On  one  side  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  it  was  law 
ful,  and  even  praiseworthy,  to  steal  the  horse ;  on 
the  other,  it  was  a  hanging  matter  to  look  over  the 
fence. 

But  in  seeking  for  the  cause  of  the  rebellion, 
with  any  fairness  toward  the  Southern  people, 
and  any  wish  to  understand  their  motives  and 
character,  it  would  be  unwise  to  leave  out  of  view 
the  fact  that  they  have  been  carefully  educated  in 
the  faith  that  secession  is  not  only  their  right,  but 
the  only  safeguard  of  their  freedom.  While  it  is 
perfectly  true  that  the  great  struggle  now  going  on 
is  intrinsically  between  right  and  privilege,  between 
law  and  license,  and  while  on  the  part  of  its  leaders 
the  Southern  revolt  was  a  conspiracy  against  popu 
lar  government,  and  an  attempt  to  make  a  great 
Republic  into  a  mere  convenient  drudge  for  Slavery, 
yet  we  should  despair  of  our  kind  did  we  believe 
that  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Confederate  armies 
were  consciously  spending  so  much  courage  and 
endurance  on  behalf  of  barbarism.  It  is  more 
consoling,  as  it  is  nearer  the  truth,  to  think  that 
they  are  fighting  for  what  they  have  been  taught  to 
believe  their  rights,  and  their  inheritance  as  a  free 
people.  The  high  qualities  they  have  undoubtedly 
shown  in  the  course  of  the  war,  their  tenacity, 
patience,  and  discipline,  show  that,  under  better 


150  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

influences,  they  may  become  worthy  to  take  their 
part  in  advancing  the  true  destinies  of  America. 

It  is  yet  too  early  to  speculate  with  much  con 
fidence  on  the  remote  consequences  of  the  war. 
One  of  its  more  immediate  results  has  already 
been  to  disabuse  the  Southern  mind  of  some  of 
its  most  fatal  misconceptions  as  to  Northern  char 
acter.  They  thought  us  a  trading  people,  incapable 
of  lofty  sentiment,  ready  to  sacrifice  everything 
for  commercial  advantage, —  a  heterogeneous  rabble, 
fit  only  to  be  ruled  by  a  superior  race.  They  are 
not  likely  to  make  that  mistake  again,  and  must 
have  learned  by  this  time  that  the  best  blood  is 
that  which  has  in  it  most  of  the  iron  of  purpose 
and  constancy.  War,  the  sternest  and  dearest 
of  teachers,  has  already  made  us  a  soberer  and 
older  people  on  both  sides.  It  has  brought  ques 
tions  of  government  and  policy  home  to  us  as  never 
before,  and  has  made  us  feel  that  citizenship  is  a 
duty  to  whose  level  we  must  rise,  and  not  a  privilege 
to  which  we  are  born.  The  great  principles  of 
humanity  and  politics,  which  had  faded  into  the 
distance  of  abstraction  and  history,  have  been  for 
four  years  the  theme  of  earnest  thought  and  dis 
cussion  at  every  fireside  and  wherever  two  men 
met  together.  They  have  again  become  living  and 
operative  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  nation. 
What  was  before  a  mighty  population  is  grown  a 
great  country,  united  in  one  hope,  inspired  by  one 
thought,  and  welded  into  one  power.  But  have 
not  the  same  influences  produced  the  same  result 
in  the  South,  and  created  there  also  a  nation  hope- 


THE  REBELLION.  151 

lessly  alien  and  hostile  ?  To  a  certain  extent  this 
is  true,  but  not  in  the  unlimited  way  in  which  it 
is  stated  by  enemies  in  England,  or  politicians 
at  home,  who  would  gladly  put  the  people  out  of 
heart,  because  they  themselves  are  out  of  office. 
With  the  destruction  of  slavery,  the  one  object  of 
the  war  will  have  been  lost  by  the  Rebels,  and  its 
one  great  advantage  gained  by  the  government. 
Slavery  is  by  no  means  dead  as  yet,  whether 
socially  in  its  relation  of  man  to  man,  or  morally 
in  its  hold  on  'public  opinion  and  its  strength  as 
a  political  superstition.  But  there  is  no  party  at 
the  North,  considerable  in  numbers  or  influence, 
which  could  come  into  power  on  the  platform  of 
making  peace  with  the  Rebels  on  their  own  terms. 
No  party  can  get  possession  of  the  government 
which  is  not  in  sympathy  with  the  temper  of  the 
people,  and  the  people,  forced  into  war  against 
their  will  by  the  unprovoked  attack  of  pro-slavery 
bigotry,  are  resolved  on  pushing  it  to  its  legiti 
mate  conclusion.  War  means  now,  consciously 
with  many,  unconsciously  with  most,  but  inevita 
bly,  abolition.  Nothing  can  save  slavery  but  peace. 
Let  its  doom  be  once  accomplished,  or  its  recon 
struction  (for  reconstruction  means  nothing  more) 
clearly  seen  to  be  an  impossibility,  and  the  bond 
between  the  men  at  the  South  who  were  willing  to 
destroy  the  Union,  and  those  at  the  North  who 
only  wish  to  save  it,  for  the  sake  of  slavery,  will 
be  broken.  The  ambitious  in  both  sections  will 
prefer  their  chances  as  members  of  a  mighty 
empire  to  what  would  always  be  secondary  places 


152  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

in  two  rival  and  hostile  nations,  powerless  to  com 
mand  respect  abroad  or  secure  prosperity  at  home. 
The  masses  of  the  Southern  people  will  not  feel 
too  keenly  the  loss  of  a  kind  of  property  in  which 
they  had  no  share,  while  it  made  them  underlings, 
nor  will  they  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  themselves 
with  a  government  from  which  they  had  no  real 
cause  of  estrangement.  If  the  war  be  waged  man 
fully,  as  becomes  a  thoughtful  people,  without 
insult  or  childish  triumph  in  success,  if  we  meet 
opinion  with  wiser  opinion,  waste  no  time  in 
badgering  prejudice  till  it  become  hostility,  and 
attack  slavery  as  a  crime  against  the  nation,  and 
not  as  individual  sin,  it  will  end,  we  believe,  in 
making  us  the  most  powerful  and  prosperous  com 
munity  the  world  ever  saw.  Our  example  and  our 
ideas  will  react  more  powerfully  than  ever  on  the 
Old  World,  and  the  consequence  of  a  rebellion, 
aimed  at  the  natural  equality  of  all  men,  will  be 
to  hasten  incalculably  the  progress  of  equalization 
over  the  whole  earth.  Above  all,  Freedom  will 
become  the  one  absorbing  interest  of  the  whole 
people,  making  us  a  nation  alive  from  sea  to  sea 
with  the  consciousness  of  a  great  purpose  and 
a  noble  destiny,  and  uniting  us  as  slavery  has 
hitherto  combined  and  made  powerful  the  most 
hateful  aristocracy  known  to  man. 


McCLELLAN   OR   LINCOLN? 

1864. 

THE  spectacle  of  an  opposition  waiting  patiently 
during  several  months  for  its  principles  to  turn  up 
would  be  amusing  in  times  less  critical  than  these. 
Nor  was  this  the  worst.  If  there  might  be  persons 
malicious  enough  to  think  that  the  Democratic 
party  could  get  along  very  well  without  principles, 
all  would  admit  that  a  candidate  was  among  the 
necessaries  of  life.  Now,  where  not  only  immedi 
ate  policy,  but  the  very  creed  which  that  policy 
is  to  embody,  is  dependent  on  circumstances,  and 
on  circumstances  so  shifting  and  doubtful  as  those 
of  a  campaign,  it  is  hard  to  find  a  representative 
man  whose  name  may,  in  some  possible  contingen 
cy,  mean  enough,  without,  in  some  other  equally 
possible  contingency,  meaning  too  much.  The 
problem  was  to  hunt  up  somebody  who,  without 
being  anything  in  particular,  might  be  anything 
in  general,  as  occasion  demanded.  Of  course,  the 
professed  object  of  the  party  was  to  save  their 
country,  but  which  was  their  country,  and  which 
it  would  be  most  profitable  to  save,  whether  Amer 
ica  or  Secessia,  was  a  question  that  Grant  or 
Sherman  might  answer  one  way  or  the  other  in 
a  single  battle.  If  only  somebody  or  something 


154  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

would  tell  them  whether  they  were  for  war  or 
peace !  The  oracles  were  dumb,  and  all  summer 
long  they  looked  anxiously  out,  like  Sister  Anne 
from  her  tower,  for  the  hero  who  should  rescue 
unhappy  Columbia  from  the  Republican  Blue 
beard.  Did  they  see  a  cloud  of  dust  in  the 
direction  of  Richmond  or  Atlanta?  Perhaps 
Grant  might  be  the  man,  after  all,  or  even  Sher 
man  would  answer  at  a  pinch.  When  at  last  no 
great  man  would  come  along,  it  was  debated 
whether  it  might  not  be  better  to  nominate  some 
one  without  a  record,  as  it  is  called,  since  a  no 
body  was  clearly  the  best  exponent  of  a  party 
that  was  under  the  unhappy  necessity  of  being 
still  uncertain  whether  it  had  any  recognizable 
soul  or  not.  Meanwhile,  the  time  was  getting 
short  and  the  public  impatience  peremptory. 

"  Under  which  king1,  bezonian  ?     Speak,  or  die  !  " 

The  party  found  it  alike  inconvenient  to  do  the 
one  or  the  other,  and  ended  by  a  compromise 
which  might  serve  to  keep  them  alive  till  after 
election,  but  which  was  as  far  from  any  distinct 
utterance  as  if  their  mouths  were  already  full  of 
that  official  pudding  which  they  hope  for  as  the 
reward  of  their  amphibological  patriotism.  Since 
it  was  not  safe  to  be  either  for  peace  or  war,  they 
resolved  to  satisfy  every  reasonable  expectation 
by  being  at  the  same  time  both  and  neither.  If 
you  are  warlike,  there  is  General  McClellan ;  if 
pacific,  surely  you  must  be  suited  with  Mr.  Pendle- 
ton ;  if  neither,  the  combination  of  the  two  makes 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN?  155 

a  tertium  quid  that  is  neither  one  thing  nor 
another.  As  the  politic  Frenchman,  kissing  the 
foot  of  St.  Peter's  statue  (recast  out  of  a  Jupiter), 
while  he  thus  did  homage  to  existing  prejudices, 
hoped  that  the  Thunderer  would  remember  him 
if  he  ever  came  into  power  again,  so  the  Chicago 
Convention  compliments  the  prevailing  warlike 
sentiment  of  the  country  with  a  soldier,  but  holds 
the  civilian  quietly  in  reserve  for  the  future  con 
tingencies  of  submission.  The  nomination  is  a 
kind  of  political  Wfiat-is-it  ?  and  voters  are  ex 
pected,  without  asking  impertinent  questions,  to 
pay  their  money  and  make  their  own  choice  as 
to  the  natural  history  of  the  animal.  Looked  at 
from  the  Northern  side,  it  is  a  raven,  the  bird  of 
carnage,  to  be  sure,  but  whitewashed  and  looking 
as  decorously  dove-like  as  it  can ;  from  the  South 
ern,  it  is  a  dove,  blackened  over  for  the  nonce, 
but  letting  the  olive-branch  peep  from  under  its 
wing. 

A  more  delicate  matter  for  a  convention,  how 
ever,  even  than  the  selection  of  candidates,  is  the 
framing  of  a  platform  for  them  to  stand  upon. 
It  was  especially  delicate  for  a  gathering  which 
represented  so  many  heterogeneous  and  almost 
hostile  elements.  So  incongruous  an  assemblage 
has  not  been  seen  since  the  host  of  Peter  the 
Hermit,  unanimous  in  nothing  but  the  hope  of 
plunder  and  of  reconquering  the  Holy  Land  of 
office.  There  were  War  Democrats  ready  to  unite 
in  peace  resolutions,  and  Peace  Democrats  eager 
to  move  the  unanimous  nomination  of  a  war  can- 


156  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

didate.  To  make  the  confusion  complete,  Mr. 
Franklin  Pierce,  the  dragooner  of  Kansas,  writes 
a  letter  in  favor  of  free  elections,  and  the  ma- 
ligners  of  New  England  propose  a  Connecticut 
Yankee  as  their  favorite  nominee.  The  Conven 
tion  was  a  rag-bag  of  dissent,  made  up  of  bits  so 
various  in  hue  and  texture  that  the  managers  must 
have  been  as  much  puzzled  to  arrange  them  in  any 
kind  of  harmonious  pattern  as  the  thrifty  house 
wife  in  planning  her  coverlet  out  of  the  parings 
of  twenty  years'  dressmaking.  All  the  odds  and 
ends  of  personal  discontent,  every  shred  of  private 
grudge,  every  resentful  rag  snipped  off  by  official 
shears,  scraps  of  Rebel  gray  and  leavings  of  Union 
blue,  —  all  had  been  gathered,  as  if  for  the  tailor 
ing  of  Joseph's  coat ;  and  as  a  Chatham  Street 
broker  first  carefully  removes  all  marks  of  previous 
ownership  from  the  handkerchiefs  which  find  their 
way  to  his  counter,  so  the  temporary  chairman 
advised  his  hearers,  by  way  of  a  preliminary  cau 
tion,  to  surrender  their  convictions.  This,  perhaps, 
was  superfluous,  for  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
anybody  present,  except  Mr.  Fernando  Wood,  ever 
legally  had  one,  though  Captain  Rynders  must 
have  brought  many  in  his  following  who  richly 
deserved  it.  Mr.  Belmont,  being  chosen  to  repre 
sent  the  Democracy  of  Mammon,  did  little  more 
than  paraphrase  in  prose  the  speech  of  that  fallen 
financier  in  another  rebellious  conclave,  as  reported 
by  Milton :  — 

' '  How  in  safety  best  we  may 
Compose  our  present  evils,  with  regard 


McCLELLAN  OR   LINCOLN?  157 

Of  what  we  are  and  were,  dismissing  quite 
All  thoughts  of  war." 

But  we  turn  from  the  momentary  elevation  of 
the  banker,  to  follow  the  arduous  labors  of  the 
Committee  on  Resolutions.1  The  single  end  to  be 
served  by  the  platform  they  were  to  construct  was 
that  of  a  bridge  over  which  their  candidate  might 
make  his  way  into  the  White  House.  But  it  must 
be  so  built  as  to  satisfy  the  somewhat  exacting  the 
ory  of  construction  held  by  the  Rebel  emissaries  at 
Niagara,  while  at  the  same  time  no  apprehensions 
as  to  its  soundness  must  be  awakened  in  the  loyal 
voters  of  the  party.  The  war  plank  would  offend 
the  one,  the  State  Rights  plank  excite  the  suspicion 
of  the  other.  The  poor  fellow  in  ^Esop,  with  his 
two  wives,  one  pulling  out  the  black  hairs  and  the 
other  the  white,  was  not  in  a  more  desperate  sit 
uation  than  the  Committee,  —  MacHeath,  between 
his  two  doxies,  not  more  embarrassed.  The  result 
of  their  labors  was,  accordingly,  as  narrow  as  the 
pathway  of  the  faithful  into  the  Mahometan  par 
adise,  —  so  slender,  indeed,  that  Blondin  should 
have  been  selected  as  the  only  candidate  who  could 
hope  to  keep  his  balance  on  it,  with  the  torrent  of 
events  rushing  ever  swifter  and  louder  below.  It 
might  sustain  the  somewhat  light  Unionism  of  Mr. 
Pen  die  ton,  but  would  General  McClellan  dare  to 
trust  its  fragile  footing,  with  his  Report  and  his 
West  Point  oration,  with  his  record,  in  short,  under 
his  arm  ?  Without  these  documents  General  Mc- 

1  The  Platform  of  the  Chicago  Convention  was  published  in  the 
public  journals  30th  August. 


158  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Clellan  is  a  nobody ;  with  them,  before  he  can  step 
on  a  peace  platform,  he  must  eat  an  amount  of  leek 
that  would  have  turned  the  stomach  of  Ancient 
Pistol  himself.  It  remained  to  be  seen  whether  he 
was  more  in  favor  of  being  President  than  of  his 
own  honor  and  that  of  the  country. 

The  Resolutions  of  the  Chicago  Convention, 
though  they  denounce  various  wrongs  and  evils, 
some  of  them  merely  imaginary,  and  all  the  neces 
sary  results  of  civil  war,  propose  only  one  thing, 
—  surrender.  Disguise  it  as  you  will,  flavor  it  as 
you  will,  call  it  what  you  will,  umble-pie  is  umble- 
pie,  and  nothing  else.  The  people  instinctively  so 
understood  it.  They  rejected  with  disgust  a  plan 
whose  mere  proposal  took  their  pusillanimity  for 
granted,  and  whose  acceptance  assured  their  self- 
contempt.  At  a  moment  when  the  Rebels  would 
be  checkmated  in  another  move,  we  are  advised  to 
give  them  a  knight  and  begin  the  game  over  again. 
If  they  are  not  desperate,  what  chance  of  their  ac 
cepting  offers  which  they  rejected  with  scorn  before 
the  war  began  ?  If  they  are  not  desperate,  why  is 
their  interest  more  intense  in  the  result  of  our  next 
Presidential  election  than  even  in  the  campaign 
at  their  very  door?  If  they  were  not  desperate, 
would  two  respectable  men  like  Messrs.  Clay  and 
Holcomb  endure  the  society  of  George  Saunders  ? 
General  McClellan  himself  admitted  the  righteous 
ness  of  the  war  by  volunteering  in  it,  and,  the  war 
once  begun,  the  only  real  question  has  been  whether 
the  principle  of  legitimate  authority  or  that  of 
wanton  insurrection  against  it  should  prevail,  — 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN?  159 

whether  we  should  have  for  the  future  a  gov 
ernment  of  opinion  or  of  brute  force.  When  the 
rebellion  began,  its  leaders  had  no  intention  to 
dissolve  the  Union,  but  to  reconstruct  it,  to  make 
the  Montgomery  Constitution  and  Jefferson  Davis 
supreme  over  the  whole  country,  and  not  over  a 
feeble  fragment  of  it.  They  knew,  as  we  knew,  the 
weakness  of  a  divided  country,  and  our  experience 
of  foreign  governments  during  the  last  four  years 
has  not  been  such  as  to  lessen  the  apprehension  on 
that  score,  or  to  make  the  consciousness  of  it  less 
pungent  in  either  of  the  contending  sections.  Even 
now,  Jefferson  Davis  is  said  to  be  in  favor  of  a  con 
federation  between  the  Free  and  the  Slave  States. 
But  what  confederation  could  give  us  back  the 
power  and  prestige  of  the  old  Union  ?  The  expe 
rience  of  Germany  surely  does  not  tempt  to  imi 
tation.  And  in  making  overtures  for  peace,  with 
whom  are  we  to  treat?  Talking  vaguely  about 
"  the  South,"  "  the  Confederate  States,"  or  "  the 
Southern  people,"  does  not  help  the  matter  ;  for 
the  cat  under  all  this  meal  is  always  the  govern 
ment  at  Richmond,  men  with  everything  to  expect 
from  independence,  with  much  to  hope  from  re 
construction,  and  sure  of  nothing  but  ruin  from 
reunion.  And  these  men,  who  were  arrogant  as 
equals  and  partners,  are  to  be  moderate  in  dictat 
ing  terms  as  conquerors !  If  the  people  understood 
less  clearly  the  vital  principle  which  is  at  hazard  in 
this  contest,  if  they  were  not  fully  persuaded  that 
Slavery  and  State  Rights  are  merely  the  coun 
ters,  and  that  free  institutions  are  the  real  stake, 


160  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

they  might  be  deluded  with  the  hope  of  compro 
mise.  But  there  are  things  that  are  not  subjects 
of  compromise.  The  honor,  the  conscience,  the 
very  soul  of  a  nation,  cannot  be  compromised  with 
out  ceasing  to  exist.  When  you  propose  to  yield 
a  part  of  them,  there  is  already  nothing  left  to 
yield. 

And  yet  this  is  all  that  the  party  calling  itself 
Democratic,  after  months  of  deliberation,  after 
four  years  in  which  to  study  the  popular  mind, 
have  to  offer  in  the  way  of  policy.  It  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  to  confess  that  they  have  no 
real  faith  in  popular  self-government,  for  it  is  to 
assume  that  the  people  have  neither  common  nor 
moral  sense.  General  McClellan  is  to  be  put  in 
command  of  the  national  citadel,  on  condition  that 
he  immediately  offers  to  capitulate.  To  accept  the 
nomination  on  these  terms  was  to  lose,  not  only 
his  election,  but  his  self-respect.  Accordingly,  no 
sooner  was  the  damaging  effect  of  the  platform 
evident  than  it  was  rumored  that  he  would  consent 
to  the  candidacy,  but  reject  the  conditions  on 
which  alone  it  was  offered.  The  singular  uniform, 
half  Union -blue  and  half  Confederate  -  gray,  in 
which  it  was  proposed  by  the  managers  at  Chicago 
to  array  the  Democratic  party,  while  it  might  be  no 
novelty  to  some  camp-followers  of  the  New  York 
delegation  familiar  with  the  rules  of  certain  of  our 
public  institutions,  could  hardly  be  agreeable  to 
one  who  had  worn  the  livery  of  his  country  with 
distinction.  It  was  the  scene  of  Petruchio  and  the 
tailor  over  again  :  — 


McCLELLAN   OR   LINCOLN  1  161 

Gen.  McC.     "Why,  what,  i'  th'  Devil's  name,  tailor,  call'st  thou 

this?  " 
Committee.     "  You  bid  me  make  it  orderly  and  well, 

According  to  the  fashion  and  the  time." 
Gen.  McC.     ''Marry,  I  did;    but,  if  you  be  remembered, 

I  did  not  bid  you  mar  it  to  the  time." 

Between  the  nomination  and  acceptance  came 
the  taking  of  Atlanta,  marring  the  coat  to  the  time 
with  a  vengeance,  and  suggesting  the  necessity  of 
turning  it,  —  a  sudden  cure  which  should  rank 
among  the  first  in  future  testimonials  to  the  efficacy 
of  Sherman's  lozenges.  Had  General  McClellan 
thrust  the  resolutions  away  from  him  with  an  hon 
est  scorn,  we  should  have  nothing  to  say  save  in 
commendation.  But  to  accept  them  with  his  own 
interpretation,  to  put  upon  them  a  meaning  utterly 
averse  from  their  plain  intention,  and  from  that 
understanding  of  them  which  the  journals  of  his 
own  faction  clearly  indicated  by  their  exultation  or 
their  silence,  according  as  they  favored  Confeder 
acy  or  Union,  is  to  prepare  a  deception  for  one  of 
the  parties  to  the  bargain.  In  such  cases,  which 
is  commonly  cheated,  the  candidate,  or  the  people 
who  vote  for  him  ?  If  the  solemn  and  deliberate 
language  of  resolutions  is  to  be  interpreted  by  con 
traries,  what  rule  of  hermeneutics  shall  we  apply 
to  the  letter  of  a  candidate  ?  If  the  Convention 
meant  precisely  what  they  did  not  say,  have  we 
any  assurance  that  the  aspirant  has  not  said  pre 
cisely  what  he  did  not  mean  ?  Two  negatives  may 
constitute  an  affirmative,  but  surely  the  affirmation 
of  two  contradictory  propositions  by  parties  to  the 
same  bargain  assures  nothing  but  misunderstanding. 


162  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

The  resolutions  were  adopted  with  but  four  dis 
senting  votes  ;  their  meaning  was  obvious,  and  the 
whole  country  understood  it  to  be  peace  on  any 
conditions  that  would  be  condescended  to  at  Rich 
mond.  If  a  nation  were  only  a  contrivance  to  pro 
tect  men  in  gathering  gear,  if  territory  meant  only 
so  many  acres  for  the  raising  of  crops,  if  power 
were  of  worth  only  as  a  police  to  prevent  or  punish 
crimes  against  person  and  property,  then  peace  for 
the  mere  sake  of  peace  were  the  one  desirable  thing 
for  a  people  whose  only  history  would  be  written 
in  its  cash-book.  But  if  a  nation  be  a  living  unity, 
leaning  on  the  past  by  tradition,  and  reaching 
toward  the  future  by  continued  aspiration  and 
achievement,  —  if  territory  be  of  value  for  the  rais 
ing  of  men  formed  to  high  aims  and  inspired  to 
noble  deeds  by  that  common  impulse  which,  spring 
ing  from  a  national  ideal,  gradually  takes  authen 
tic  shape  in  a  national  character,  —  if  power  be 
but  a  gross  and  earthy  bulk  till  it  be  ensouled  with 
thought  and  purpose,  and  of  worth  only  as  the 
guardian  and  promoter  of  truth  and  justice  among 
men,  —  then  there  are  misfortunes  worse  than  war 
and  blessings  greater  than  peace.  At  this  moment, 
not  the  Democratic  party  only,  but  the  whole  coun 
try,  longs  for  peace,  and  the  difference  is  merely  as 
to  the  price  that  shall  be  paid  for  it.  Shall  we  pay 
in  degradation,  and  sue  for  a  cessation  of  hostili 
ties  which  would  make  chaos  the  rule  and  order  the 
exception,  which  would  not  be  peace,  but  toleration, 
not  the  repose  of  manly  security,  but  the  helpless 
quiet  of  political  death  ?  Or  shall  we  pay,  in  a 


McCLELLAN  OR   LINCOLN?  163 

little  more  present  suffering,  self-sacrifice,  and  ear 
nestness  of  purpose,  for  a  peace  that  shall  be  as 
lasting  as  honorable,  won  as  it  will  be  by  the  vic 
tory  of  right  over  wrong,  and  resting  on  the  prom 
ise  of  God  and  the  hope  of  man?  We  believe  the 
country  has  already  made  up  its  mind  as  to  the  an 
swer,  and  will  prove  that  a  democracy  may  have  as 
clear  a  conception  of  its  interests  and  duties,  as 
fixed  a  purpose  in  defending  the  one  and  fulfilling 
the  other,  a  will  as  united  and  prompt,  as  have 
hitherto  been  supposed  to  characterize  forms  of 
government  where  the  interests  were  more  personal 
and  the  power  less  diffused. 

Fortunately,  though  some  of  General  McClellan's 
indiscreet  friends  would  make  the  coming  election 
to  turn  upon  his  personal  quarrel  with  the  admin 
istration,  the  question  at  issue  between  the  two  par 
ties  which  seek  to  shape  the  policy  of  the  country 
is  one  which  manifestly  transcends  all  lesser  con 
siderations,  and  must  be  discussed  in  the  higher 
atmosphere  of  principle,  by  appeals  to  the  reason, 
and  not  the  passions,  of  the  people.  However 
incongruous  with  each  other  in  opinion  the  candi 
dates  of  the  Democratic  party  may  be,  in  point  of 
respectability  they  are  unexceptionable.  It  is  true, 
as  one  of  the  candidates  represents  war  and  the 
other  peace,  and  "  when  two  men  ride  on  one  horse, 
one  must  ride  behind,"  that  it  is  of  some  conse 
quence  to  know  which  is  to  be  in  the  saddle  and 
which  on  the  croup  :  but  we  will  take  it  for  granted 
that  General  McClellan  will  have  no  more  delicacy 
about  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Pendleton  than  he  has 


164  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

shown  for  those  of  the  Convention.  Still,  we 
should  remember  that  the  General  may  be  impru 
dent  enough  to  die,  as  General  Harrison  and  Gen 
eral  Taylor  did  before  him,  and  that  Providence 
may  again  make  "  of  our  pleasant  vices  whips  to 
scourge  us."  We  shall  say  nothing  of  the  sectional 
aspect  of  the  nomination,  for  we  do  not  believe 
that  what  we  deemed  a  pitiful  electioneering  cla 
mor,  when  raised  against  our  own  candidates  four 
years  ago,  becomes  reasonable  argument  in  oppos 
ing  those  of  our  adversaries  now.  The  point  of 
interest,  then,  is  simply  this  :  What  can  General 
McClellan  accomplish  for  the  country  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  has  failed  to  accomplish?  In  what  re 
spect  would  their  policies  differ  ?  And,  supposing 
them  to  differ,  which  would  be  most  consistent 
with  the  honor  and  permanent  well-being  of  the 
nation  ? 

General  McClellan,  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,1 
assumes  that,  in  nominating  him,  "  the  record  of 
his  public  life  was  kept  in  view  "  by  the  Conven 
tion.  This  will  enable  us  to  define  with  some  cer 
tainty  the  points  on  which  his  policy  would  be 
likely  to  differ  from  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He 
agrees  with  him  that  the  war  was  a  matter  of  ne 
cessity,  not  of  choice.  He  agrees  with  him  in  as 
suming  a  right  to  emancipate  slaves  as  a  matter  of 
military  expediency,  differing  only  as  to  the  method 
and  extent  of  its  application,  —  a  mere  question  of 
judgment.  He  agrees  with  him  as  to  the  propriety 
of  drafting  men  for  the  public  service,  having,  in- 

1  This  letter  was  published  in  the  public  journals  9  September. 


vv  \*J&I 

McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN?  165 

deed,  been  the  first  to  recommend  a  draft  of  men 
whom  he  was  to  command  himself.  He  agrees 
with  him  that  it  is  not  only  lawful,  but  politic,  to 
make  arrests  without  the  ordinary  forms  of  law 
where  the  public  safety  requires  it,  and  himself 
both  advised  and  accomplished  the  seizure  of  an 
entire  Legislature.  So  far  there  is  no  essential 
difference,  and  beyond  this  we  find  very  little,  ex 
cept  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  a  position  where  he 
was  called  on  to  act  with  a  view  to  the  public  wel 
fare,  and  General  McClellan  in  one  where  he  could 
express  abstract  opinions,  without  the  responsibility 
of  trial,  to  be  used  hereafter  for  partisan  purposes 
as  a  part  of  his  "  record."  For  example,  just  after 
his  failure  to  coerce  the  State  of  Virginia,  he  took 
occasion  to  instruct  his  superiors  in  their  duty,  and, 
among  other  things,  stated  his  opinion  that  the  war 
"  should  not  be  a  war  looking  to  the  subjugation  of 
the  people  of  any  State,"  but  "  should  be  against 
armed  forces  and  political  organizations."  The 
whole  question  of  the  right  to  "  coerce  a  sovereign 
State  "  appears  to  have  arisen  from  a  confusion  of 
the  relations  of  a  State  to  its  own  internal  policy 
and  to  the  general  government.  But  a  State  is 
certainly  a  "  political  organization,"  and,  if  we  un 
derstand  General  McClellan  rightly,  he  would  co 
erce  a  State,  but  not  the  people  of  it,  —  a  distinc 
tion  which  we  hope  he  appreciates  better  than  its 
victims  would  be  likely  to  do.  We  find  here  also 
no  diversity  in  principle  between  the  two  men, 
only  that  Mr.  Lincoln  has  been  compelled  to  do, 
while  General  McClellan  has  had  the  easier  task 


166  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  telling  us  what  he  would  do.  After  the  Penin 
sular  campaign,  we  cannot  but  think  that  even  the 
latter  would  have  been  inclined  to  say,  with  the 
wisest  man  that  ever  spoke  in  our  tongue,  "  If  to 
do  were  as  easy  as  to  know  what  'twere  good  to 
do,  chapels  had  been  churches,  and  poor  men's  cot 
tages  princes'  palaces.  "x 

The  single  question  of  policy  on  which  General 
McClellan  differs  from  Mr.  Lincoln,  stripped  of 
the  conventional  phrases  in  which  he  drapes  it,  is 
Slavery.  He  can  mean  nothing  else  when  he  talks 
of  "  conciliation  and  compromise,"  of  receiving 
back  any  State  that  may  choose  to  return  "  with  a 
full  guaranty  of  all  its  constitutional  rights."  If 
it  be  true  that  a  rose  by  any  other  name  will  smell 
as  sweet,  it  is  equally  true  that  there  is  a  certain 
species  of  toadstool  that  would  be  none  the  less  dis 
gusting  under  whatever  alias.  Compromise  and 
conciliation  are  both  excellent  things  in  their  own 
way,  and  in  the  fitting  time  and  place,  but  right 
cannot  be  compromised  without  surrendering  it, 
and  to  attempt  conciliation  by  showing  the  white 
feather  ends,  not  in  reconcilement,  but  subjection. 
The  combined  ignorance  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  of 
Ephesus  as  to  what  had  been  going  on  while  they 
were  in  their  cavern  would  hardly  equal  that  of 
General  McClellan  alone  as  to  the  political  history 
of  the  country.  In  the  few  months  between  Mr. 
Lincoln's  election  and  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter 
we  tried  conciliation  in  every  form,  carrying  it 
almost  to  the  verge  of  ignominy.  The  Southern 
leaders  would  have  none  of  it.  They  saw  in  it 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN  1  167 

only  a  confession  of  weakness,  and  were  but  the 
more  arrogant  in  their  demand  of  all  or  nothing. 
Compromise  we  tried  for  three  quarters  of  a  cen 
tury,  and  it  brought  us  to  where  we  are,  for  it  was 
only  a  fine  name  for  cowardice,  and  invited  aggres 
sion.  And  now  that  the  patient  is  dying  of  this 
drench  of  lukewarm  water,  Doctor  Sangrado  Mc- 
Clellan  gravely  prescribes  another  gallon.  If  that 
fail  to  finish  him,  why,  give  him  a  gallon  more. 

We  wish  it  were  as  easy  to  restore  General  Mc- 
Clellan's  army  to  what  it  was  before  the  Peninsular 
campaign  as  he  seems  to  think  it  is  to  put  the 
country  back  where  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war.  The  war,  it  is  true,  was  undertaken  to  assert 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Constitution,  but  the  true 
cause  of  quarrel  was,  not  that  the  South  denied 
the  supremacy  of  that  instrument,  but  that  they 
claimed  the  sole  right  to  interpret  it,  and  to  inter 
pret  it  in  a  sense  hostile  to  the  true  ideal  of  the 
country,  and  the  clear  interests  of  the  people.  But 
circumstances  have  changed,  and  what  was  at  first 
a  struggle  to  maintain  the  outward  form  of  our 
government  has  become  a  contest  to  preserve  the 
life  and  assert  the  supreme  will  of  the  nation. 
Even  in  April,  1861,  underneath  that  desire  for 
legal  sanction  common  to  our  race,  which  expressed 
itself  in  loyalty  to  the  Constitution,  there  was  an 
instinctive  feeling  that  the  very  germinating  prin 
ciple  of  our  nationality  was  at  stake,  and  that  unity 
of  territory  was  but  another  name  for  unity  of 
idea ;  nay,  was  impossible  without  it,  and  undesir 
able  if  it  were  possible.  It  was  not  against  the 


168  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Constitution  that  the  Rebels  declared  war,  but 
against  free  institutions  ;  and  if  they  are  beaten, 
they  must  submit  to  the  triumph  of  those  institu 
tions.  Their  only  chance  of  constitutional  victory 
was  at  the  polls.  They  rejected  it,  though  it  was 
in  their  grasp,  and  now  it  is  for  -us,  and  not  them, 
to  dictate  terms.  After  all  the  priceless  blood  they 
have  shed,  General  McClellan  would  say  to  them, 
"  Come  back  and  rule  us."  Mr.  Lincoln  says, 
"  Come  back  as  equals,  with  every  avenue  of  power 
open  to  you  that  is  open  to  us  ;  but  the  advantage 
which  the  slaveholding  interest  wrung  from  the 
weakness  of  the  fathers  your  own  madness  has  for 
feited  to  the  sons." 

General  McClellan  tells  us  that  if  the  war  had 
been  conducted  "  in  accordance  with  those  prin 
ciples  which  he  took  occasion  to  declare  when  in 
active  service,  reconciliation  would  have  been 
easy."  We  suppose  he  refers  to  his  despatch  of 
July  7th,  1862,  when,  having  just  demonstrated 
his  incapacity  in  the  profession  for  which  he  had 
been  educated,  he  kindly  offered  to  take  the  civil 
policy  of  the  country  under  his  direction,  expect 
ing,  perhaps,  to  be  more  successful  in  a  task  for 
which  he  was  fitted  neither  by  training  nor  ex 
perience.  It  is  true  he  had  already  been  spoken 
of  as  a  possible  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and 
that  despatch  was  probably  written  to  be  referred 
to  afterwards  as  part  of  the  "record"  to  which 
he  alludes  in  his  recent  letter.  Indeed,  he  could 
have  had  no  other  conceivable  object  in  so  imper 
tinent  a  proceeding,  for,  up  to  that  time,  the  war 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN*  169 

had  been  conducted  on  the  very  principles  he  re 
commended  ;  nay,  was  so  conducted  for  six  months 
longer,  till  it  was  demonstrated  that  reconciliation 
was  not  to  be  had  on  those  terms,  and  that  victory 
was  incompatible  with  them.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
forced  into  what  General  McClellan  calls  a  radical 
policy  by  the  necessity  of  the  case.  The  Rebels 
themselves  insisted  on  convincing  him  that  his 
choice  was  between  that  and  failure.  They  boasted 
that  slavery  was  their  bulwark  and  arsenal ;  that, 
while  every  Northern  soldier  withdrew  so  much 
from  the  productive  industry  of  the  Union,  every 
fighting-man  at  the  South  could  be  brought  into 
the  field,  so  long  as  the  negroes  were  left  to  do 
the  work  that  was  to  feed  and  clothe  him.  Were 
these  negroes  property?  The  laws  of  war  jus 
tified  us  in  appropriating  them  to  our  own  use. 
Were  they  population  ?  The  laws  of  war  equally 
justified  us  in  appealing  to  them  for  aid  in  a  cause 
which  was  their  own  more  than  it  was  ours.  It 
was  so  much  the  worse  for  the  South  that  its  pro 
perty  was  of  a  kind  that  could  be  converted  from 
chattels  into  men,  and  from  men  into  soldiers,  by 
the  scratch  of  a  pen.  The  dragon's  teeth  were 
not  of  our  sowing,  but,  so  far  from  our  being  under 
any  obligation  not  to  take  into  our  service  the 
army  that  sprang  from  them,  it  would  have  been 
the  extreme  of  weakness  and  folly  not  to  do  it. 
If  there  be  no  provision  in  the  Constitution  for 
emancipating  the  negroes,  neither  is  there  any  for 
taking  Richmond ;  and  we  give  General  McClellan 
too  much  credit  for  intelligence  and  patriotism  to 


170  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

suppose  that  if,  when  he  asked  for  a  hundred 
thousand  more  men  at  Harrison's  Bar,  he  had  been 
told  that  he  could  have  black  ones,  he  would  have 
refused  them. 

But  supposing  the  very  improbable  chance  of 
General  McClellan's  election  to  the  Presidency, 
how  would  he  set  about  his  policy  of  conciliation  ? 
Would  he  disarm  the  colored  troop^?  In  favor 
of  prosecuting  the  war,  as  he  declares  himself  to 
be,  this  would  only  necessitate  the  draft  of  just 
so  many  white  ones  in  their  stead.  Would  he 
recall  the  proclamation  of  freedom?  This  would 
only  be  to  incite  a  servile  insurrection.  The 
people  have  already  suffered  too  much  by  General 
McClellan's  genius  for  retreat,  to  follow  him  in 
another  even  more  disastrous.  But  it  is  idle  to 
suppose  that  the  Rebels  are  to  be  appeased  by  any 
exhibition  of  weakness.  Like  other  men,  they 
would  take  fresh  courage  from  it.  Force  is  the 
only  argument  to  which  they  are  in  a  condition 
to  listen,  and,  like  other  men,  they  will  yield  to 
it  at  last,  if  it  prove  irresistible.  We  cannot 
think  that  General  McClellan  would  wish  to  go 
down  to  posterity  as  the  President  who  tried  to 
restore  the  Union  by  the  reenslaving  of  men  who 
had  fought  in  its  defence,  and  had  failed  in  the 
attempt.  We  doubt  if  he  had  any  very  clear  con 
ception  of  what  he  meant  by  conciliation  and  com 
promise,  except  as  a  gloss  to  make  the  uncondi 
tional  surrender  doctrine  of  the  Chicago  Convention 
a  little  less  odious.  If  he  meant  more,  if  he  hoped 
to  gain  political  strength  by  an  appeal  to  the  old 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN?  171 

pro-slavery  prejudices  of  the  country,  he  merely 
shows  the  same  unfortunate  unconsciousness  of  the 
passage  of  time,  and  the  changes  it  brings  with  it, 
that  kept  him  in  the  trenches  at  Yorktown  till  his 
own  defeat  became  inevitable.  Perhaps  he  believes 
that  the  Rebels  would  accept  from  him  what  they 
rejected  with  contempt  when  offered  by  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  —  that  they  would  do  in  compliment  to  him 
what  they  refused  to  do  from  the  interest  of  self- 
preservation.  If  they  did,  it  would  simply  prove 
that  they  were  in  a  condition  to  submit  to  terms, 
and  not  to  dictate  them.  If  they  listened  to  his 
advances,  their  cause  must  be  so  hopeless  that  it 
would  be  a  betrayal  of  his  trust  to  make  them. 
If  they  were  obstinate,  he  would  be  left  with  the 
same  war  on  his  hands  which  has  forced  Mr.  Lin 
coln  into  all  his  measures,  and  which  would  not  be 
less  exacting  on  himself.  As  a  peace  candidate  he 
might  solicit  votes  with  some  show  of  reason,  but 
on  a  war  platform  we  see  no  good  reason  for  dis 
placing  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  favor  except  on  personal 
grounds;  and  we  fear  that  our  campaigns  would 
hardly  be  conducted  with  vigor  under  a  President 
whom  the  people  should  have  invested  with  the 
office  by  way  of  poultice  for  his  bruised  sensibilities 
as  a  defeated  commander.  Once  in  the  Presidential 
chair,  with  a  country  behind  him  insisting  on  a 
re-establishment  of  the  Union,  and  a  rebellion  be 
fore  him  deaf  to  all  offers  from  a  government  that 
faltered  in  its  purposes,  we  do  not  see  what  form 
of  conciliation  he  would  hit  upon  by  which  to  per 
suade  a  refractory  "  political  organization,"  except 


172  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

that  practised  by  Hood's  butcher  when  he  was  ad 
vised  to  try  it  on  a  drove  of  sheep. 

"  He  seized  upon  the  foremost  wether, 
And  hugged  and  lugged  and  tugged  him  neck  and  crop, 
Just  nolens  volens  through  the  open  shop 
(If  tails  came  off  he  did  not  care  a  feather) ; 
Then,  walking  to  the  door  and  smiling  grim, 
He  rubbed  his  forehead  and  his  sleeve  together,  — 
'  There  !  I  've  conciliated  him !  ' ' 

It  is  idle,  however,  to  think  of  allaying  angry 
feeling  or  appeasing  resentment  while  the  war  lasts, 
and  idler  to  hope  for  any  permanent  settlement, 
except  in  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  rebellion. 
There  are  persons  who  profess  to  be  so  much  shocked 
at  the  word  subjugation  as  to  be  willing  that  we 
should  have  immediate  experience  of  the  thing,  by 
receiving  back  the  Rebels  on  their  own  conditions. 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  already  proclaimed  an  amnesty 
wide  enough  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  most 
exacting  humanity,  and  they  must  reckon  on  a 
singular  stupidity  in  their  hearers  who  impute  fero 
cious  designs  to  a  man  who  cannot  nerve  his  mind 
to  the  shooting  of  a  deserter  or  the  hanging  of  a 
spy.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  our  judgment,  has  shown 
from  the  first  the  considerate  wisdom  of  a  practical 
statesman.  If  he  has  been  sometimes  slow  in  mak 
ing  up  his  mind,  it  has  saved  him  the  necessity  of 
being  hasty  to  change  it  when  once  made  up,  and 
he  has  waited  till  the  gradual  movement  of  the 
popular  sentiment  should  help  him  to  his  conclu 
sions  and  sustain  him  in  them.  To  be  moderate 
and  unimpassioned  in  revolutionary  times  that 
kindle  natures  of  more  flimsy  texture  to  a  blaze 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN?  173 

may  not  be  a  romantic  quality,  but  it  is  a  rare 
one,  and  goes  with  those  massive  understandings 
on  which  a  solid  structure  of  achievement  may  be 
reared.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  a  long-headed  and  long- 
purposed  man,  who  knows  when  he  is  ready,  —  a 
secret  General  McClellan  never  learned.  That  he 
should  be  accused  of  playing  Cromwell  by  the  Op 
position,  and  reproached  with  not  being  Cromwel- 
lian  enough  by  the  more  ardent  of  his  own  sup 
porters,  is  proof  enough  that  his  action  has  been 
of  that  firm  but  deliberate  temper  best  suited  to 
troublous  times  and  to  constitutional  precedents. 
One  of  these  accusations  is  the  unworthy  fetch  of 
a  party  at  a  loss  for  argument,  and  the  other  springs 
from  that  exaggerated  notion  of  the  power  of  some 
exceptional  characters  upon  events  which  Carlyle 
has  made  fashionable,  but  which  was  never  even 
approximately  true  except  in  times  when  there  was 
no  such  thing  as  public  opinion,  and  of  which  there 
is  no  record  personal  enough  to  assure  us  what  we 
are  to  believe.  A  more  sincere  man  than  Cromwell 
never  lived,  yet  they  know  little  of  his  history  who 
do  not  know  that  his  policy  was  forced  to  trim  be 
tween  Independents  and  Presbyterians,  and  that 
he  so  far  healed  the  wounds  of  civil  war  as  to  make 
England  dreaded  without  satisfying  either.  We 
have  seen  no  reason  to  change  our  opinion  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  since  his  wary  scrupulousness  won  him  the 
applause  of  one  party,  or  his  decided  action,  when 
he  was  at  last  convinced  of  its  necessity,  made  him 
the  momentary  idol  of  the  other.  We  will  not 
call  him  a  great  man,  for  over-hasty  praise  is  too 


174  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

apt  to  sour  at  last  into  satire,  and  greatness  may 
be  trusted  safely  to  history  and  the  future ;  but  an 
honest  one  we  believe  him  to  be,  and  with  no  aim 
save  to  repair  the  glory  and  greatness  of  his  country. 
But  fortunately  it  is  no  trial  of  the  personal 
merits  of  opposing  candidates  on  which  the  next 
election  is  to  pronounce  a  verdict.  The  men  set 
up  by  the  two  parties  represent  principles  utterly 
antagonistic,  and  so  far-reaching  in  their  conse 
quences  that  all  personal  considerations  and  con 
temporary  squabbles  become  as  contemptible  in 
appearance  as  they  always  are  in  reality.  How 
ever  General  McClellan  may  equivocate  and  strive 
to  hide  himself  in  a  cloud  of  ink,  the  man  who 
represents  the  party  that  deliberately  and  unani 
mously  adopted  the  Chicago  Platform  is  the  prac 
tical  embodiment  of  the  principles  contained  in  it. 
By  ignoring  the  platform,  he  seems,  it  is  true,  to 
nominate  himself  ;  but  this,  though  it  may  be  good 
evidence  of  his  own  presumption,  affords  no  tittle 
of  proof  that  he  could  have  been  successful  at 
Chicago  without  some  distinct  previous  pledges  of 
what  his  policy  would  be.  If  no  such  pledges 
were  given,  then  the  Convention  nominated  him 
with  a  clear  persuasion  that  he  was  the  sort  of 
timber  out  of  which  tools  are  made.  If  they  were 
not  given,  does  not  the  acceptance  of  the  nomina 
tion  under  false  pretences  imply  a  certain  sacrifice 
of  personal  honor  ?  And  will  the  honor  of  the 
country  be  safe  in  the  hands  of  a  man  who  is 
careless  of  his  own  ?  General  McClellan's  election 
will  be  understood  by  the  South  and  by  the  whole 


McCLELLAN  OR  LINCOLN f      .       175 

country  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  right  of  se 
cession,  —  an  acknowledgment  which  will  resolve 
the  United  States  into  an  association  for  insurance 
against  any  risk  of  national  strength  and  greatness 
by  land  or  sea.  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  the  exponent  of  principles  vital  to  our  peace, 
dignity,  and  renown,  —  of  all  that  can  save  Amer 
ica  from  becoming  Mexico,  and  insure  popular 
freedom  for  centuries  to  come. 

It  is  the  merest  electioneering  trick  to  say  that 
the  war  has  been  turned  from  its  original  intention, 
as  if  this  implied  that  a  cheat  had  thereby  been 
put  upon  the  country.  The  truth  is,  that  the 
popular  understanding  has  been  gradually  enlight 
ened  as  to  the  real  causes  of  the  war,  and,  in  con 
sequence  of  that  enlightenment,  a  purpose  has 
grown  up,  defining  itself  slowly  into  clearer  con 
sciousness,  to  finish  the  war  in  the  only  way  that 
will  keep.«it  finished,  by  rooting  out  the  evil  prin 
ciple  from  which  it  sprang.  The  country  has  been 
convinced  that  a  settlement  which  should  stop 
short  of  this  would  be  nothing  more  than  a  truce 
favorable  only  to  the  weaker  party  in  the  struggle, 
to  the  very  criminals  who  forced  it  upon  us.  The 
single  question  is,  Shall  we  have  peace  by  sub 
mission  or  by  victory  ?  General  McClellan's  elec 
tion  insures  the  one,  Mr.  Lincoln's  gives  us  our 
only  chance  of  the  other.  It  is  Slavery,  and  not 
the  Southern  people,  that  is  our  enemy ;  we  must 
conquer  this  to  be  at  peace  with  them.  With  the 
relations  of  the  several  States  of  the  Rebel  Con 
federacy  to  the  Richmond  government  we  have 


176  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

nothing  to  do  ;  but  to  say  that,  after  being  beaten 
as  foreign  enemies,  they  are  to  resume  their  previ 
ous  relations  to  our  own  government  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  seems  to  us  a  manifest  absurdity. 
From  whom  would  General  McClellan,  if  elected 
under  his  plan  of  conciliation,  exact  the  penalties 
of  rebellion  ?  The  States  cannot  be  punished,  and 
the  only  merciful  way  in  which  we  can  reach  the 
real  criminals  is  by  that  very  policy  of  emancipa 
tion  whose  efficacy  is  proved  by  the  bitter  opposi 
tion  of  all  the  allies  of  the  Rebellion  in  the  North. 
This  is  a  punishment  which  will  not  affect  the  in 
dependence  of  individual  States,  which  will  improve 
the  condition  of  the  mass  of  the  Southern  popu 
lation,  and  which  alone  will  remove  the  rock  of 
offence  from  the  pathway  of  democratic  institutions. 
So  long  as  slavery  is  left,  there  is  antipathy  be 
tween  the  two  halves  of  the  country,  and  the  re 
currence  of  actual  war  will  be  only  a  question  of 
time.  It  is  the  nature  of  evil  to  be  aggressive. 
Without  moral  force  in  itself,  it  is  driven,  by  the 
necessity  of  things,  to  seek  material  props.  It 
cannot  make  peace  with  truth,  if  it  would.  Good, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  by  its  very  nature  peaceful. 
Strong  in  itself,  strong  in  the  will  of  God  and  the 
sympathy  of  man,  its  conquests  are  silent  and  be 
neficent  as  those  of  summer,  warming  into  life, 
and  bringing  to  blossom  and  fruitage,  whatever  is 
wholesome  in  men  and  the  institutions  of  men. 


RECONSTRUCTION. 

1865. 

IN  the  glare  of  our  civil  war,  certain  truths, 
hitherto  unobserved  or  guessed  at  merely,  have 
been  brought  out  with  extraordinary  sharpness  of 
relief ;  and  two  of  them  have  been  specially  im 
pressive,  the  one  for  European  observers,  the  other 
for  ourselves.  The  first,  and  perhaps  the  most 
startling  to  the  Old  World  watcher  of  the  political 
skies,  upon  whose  field  of  vision  the  flaming  sword 
of  our  western  heavens  grew  from  a  misty  speck 
to  its  full  comet-like  proportions,  perplexing  them 
with  fear  of  change,  has  been  the  amazing  strength 
and  no  less  amazing  steadiness  of  democratic  insti 
tutions.  An  army  twice  larger  than  England, 
with  the  help  of  bounties,  drafts,  and  the  purchase 
of  foreign  vagabonds,  ever  set  in  the  field  during 
the  direst  stress  of  her  struggle  with  Napoleon  has 
been  raised  in  a  single  year  by  voluntary  enlist 
ment.  A  people  untrained  to  bear  the  burden  of 
heavy  taxes  not  only  devotes  to  the  public  service 
sums  gathered  by  private  subscription  that  in  any 
other  country  would  be  deemed  fabulous,  but  by 
sheer  force  of  public  opinion  compels  its  legislators 
to  the  utmost  ingenuity  and  searchingness  of  taxa 
tion.  What  was  uttered  as  a  sarcasm  on  the  want 


178  POLITICAL  ESSAYS, 

of  public  spirit  in  Florence  is  here  only  literally 
true :  — 

' '  Many  refuse  to  bear  the  common  burden  ; 
But  thy  solicitous  people  answereth 
Unasked,  and  cries,  '  I  bend  my  back  to  it.'  ' ' 

And  that  the  contrast  may  be  felt  in  its  fullest 
completeness,  we  must  consider  that  no  private 
soldier  is  tempted  into  the  ranks  by  hopes  of 
plunder,  or  driven  into  them  by  want  of  fair  wages 
for  fair  work,  —  that  no  officer  can  look  forward 
to  the  splendid  prizes  of  hereditary  wealth  and 
title.  Love  of  their  country  was  the  only  incen 
tive,  its  gratitude  their  only  reward.  And  in  the 
matter  of  taxation  also,  a  willingness  to  help  bear 
the  common  burden  has  more  of  generosity  in  it 
where  the  wealth  of  the  people  is  in  great  part  the 
daily  result  of  their  daily  toil,  and  not  a  hoard 
inherited  without  merit,  as  without  industry. 

Nor  have  the  qualities  which  lead  to  such  strik 
ing  results  been  exhibited  only  by  the  North.  The 
same  public  spirit,  though  misled  by  wicked  men 
for  selfish  ends,  has  shown  itself  in  almost  equal 
strength  at  the  South.  And  in  both  cases  it  has 
been  unmistakably  owing  to  that  living  and  active 
devotion  of  the  people  to  institutions  in  whose  ex 
cellence  they  share,  and  their  habit  of  obedience  to 
laws  of  their  own  making.  If  we  have  not  hitherto 
had  that  conscious  feeling  of  nationality,  the  ideal 
abstract  of  history  and  tradition,  which  belongs  to 
older  countries,  compacted  by  frequent  war  and 
united  by  memories  of  common  danger  and  com 
mon  triumph,  it  has  been  simply  because  our  na- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  179 

tional  existence  has  never  been  in  such  peril  as  to 
force  upon  us  the  conviction  that  it  was  both  the 
title-deed  of  our  greatness  and  its  only  safeguard. 
But  what  splendid  possibilities  has  not  our  trial 
revealed  even  to  ourselves !  What  costly  stuff 
whereof  to  make  a  nation  !  Here  at  last  is  a  state 
whose  life  is  not  narrowly  concentred  in  a  despot 
or  a  class,  but  feels  itself  in  every  limb ;  a  govern 
ment  which  is  not  a  mere  application  of  force  from 
without,  but  dwells  as  a  vital  principle  in  the  will 
of  every  citizen.  Our  enemies  —  and  wherever  a 
man  is  to  be  found  bribed  by  an  abuse,  or  who 
profits  by  a  political  superstition,  we  have  a  natural 
enemy  —  have  striven*  to  laugh  and  sneer  and  lie 
this  apparition  of  royal  manhood  out  of  existence. 
They  conspired  our  murder ;  but  in  this  vision  is 
the  prophecy  of  a  dominion  which  is  to  push  them 
from  their  stools,  and  whose  crown  doth  sear  their 
eyeballs.  America  lay  asleep,  like  the  princess  of 
the  fairy  tale,  enchanted  by  prosperity ;  but  at  the 
first  fiery  kiss  of  war  the  spell  is  broken,  the  blood 
tingles  along  her  veins  again,  and  she  awakes  con 
scious  of  her  beauty  and  her  sovereignty. 

It  is  true  that,  by  the  side  of  the  self-devotion  and 
public  spirit,  the  vices  and  meannesses  of  troubled 
times  have  shown  themselves,  as  they  will  and  must. 
We  have  had  shoddy,  we  have  had  contracts,  we 
have  had  substitute-brokerage,  we  have  had  spe 
culators  in  patriotism,  and,  still  worse,  in  military 
notoriety.  Men  have  striven  to  make  the  blood 
of  our  martyrs  the  seed  of  wealth  or  office.  But 
in  times  of  public  and  universal  extremity,  when 


180  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

habitual  standards  of  action  no  longer  serve,  and 
ordinary  currents  of  thought  are  swamped  in  the 
flood  of  enthusiasm  or  excitement,  it  always  hap 
pens  that  the  evil  passions  of  some  men  are  stimu 
lated  by  what  serves  only  to  exalt  the  nobler  quali 
ties  of  others.  In  such  epochs,  evil  as  well  as 
good  is  exaggerated.  A  great  social  convulsion 
shakes  up  the  lees  which  underlie  society,  forgotten 
because  quiescent,  and  the  stimulus  of  calamity 
brings  out  the  extremes  of  human  nature,  whether 
for  good  or  evil. 

What  is  especially  instructive  in  the  events  we 
have  been  witnessing  for  the  past  four  years  is  the 
fact  that  the  people  have  been  the  chief  actors  in 
the  drama.  They  have  not  been  the  led,  but  the 
leaders.  They  have  not  been  involved  in  war  by 
the  passions  or  interests  of  their  rulers,  but  delib 
erately  accepted  the  ordeal  of  battle  in  defence 
of  institutions  which  were  the  work  of  their  own 
hands,  and  of  whose  beneficence  experience  had 
satisfied  them.  Loyalty  has  hitherto  been  a  senti 
ment  rather  than  a  virtue ;  it  has  been  more  often 
a  superstition  or  a  prejudice  than  a  conviction  of 
the  conscience  or  of  the  understanding.  Now  for 
the  first  time  it  is  identical  with  patriotism,  and 
has  its  seat  in  the  brain,  and  not  the  blood.  It  has 
before  been  picturesque,  devoted,  beautiful,  as  for- 
getf ulness  of  self  always  is,  but  now  it  is  something 
more  than  all  these,  —  it  is  logical.  Here  we  have 
testimony  that  cannot  be  gainsaid  to  the  universal 
vitality  and  intelligence  which  our  system  diffuses 
with  healthy  pulse  through  all  its  members.  Every 


RECONSTRUCTION.  181 

man  feels  himself  a  part,  and  not  a  subject,  of  the 
government,  and  can  say  in  a  truer  and  higher 
sense  than  Louis  XIV.,  "I  am  the  state."  But 
we  have  produced  no  Cromwell,  no  Napoleon.  Let 
us  be  thankful  that  we  have  passed  beyond  that 
period  of  political  development  when  such  produc 
tions  are  necessary,  or  even  possible.  It  is  but 
another  evidence  of  the  excellence  of  the  democratic 
principle.  Where  power  is  the  privilege  of  a  class 
or  of  a  single  person,  it  may  be  usurped ;  but  where 
it  is  the  expression  of  the  common  will,  it  can  no 
more  be  monopolized  than  air  or  light.  The  igno 
rant  and  unreasoning  force  of  a  populace,  sure  of 
losing  nothing  and  with  a  chance  of  gaining  some 
thing  by  any  change,  that  restless  material  out  of 
which  violent  revolutions  are  made,  if  it  exist  here 
at  all,  is  to  be  found  only  in  our  great  cities,  among 
a  class  who  have  learned  in  other  countries  to  look 
upon  all  law  as  their  natural  enemy.  Nor  is  it  by 
any  fault  of  American  training,  but  by  the  want  of 
it,  that  these  people  are  what  they  are.  When 
Lord  Derby  says  that  the  government  of  this  coun 
try  is  at  the  mercy  of  an  excited  mob,  he  proves 
either  that  the  demagogue  is  no  exclusive  product 
of  a  democracy,  or  that  England  would  be  in  less 
danger  of  war  if  her  governing  class  knew  some 
thing  less  of  ancient  Greece  and  a  little  more  of 
modern  America. 

Whether  or  no  there  be  any  truth  in  the  asser 
tion  that  democracy  tends  to  bring  men  down  to  a 
common  level  (as  it  surely  brings  them  up  to  one), 
we  shall  not  stop  to  inquire,  for  the  world  has  not 


182  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

yet  had  a  long  enough  experience  of  it  to  warrant 
any  safe  conclusion.  During  our  revolutionary 
struggle,  it  seems  to  us  that  both  our  civil  and 
military  leaders  compare  very  well  in  point  of 
ability  with  the  British  product  of  the  same  period, 
and  the  same  thing  may  very  well  be  true  at  the 
present  time.  But  while  it  may  be  the  glory,  it 
can  hardly  be  called  the  duty  of  a  country  to  pro 
duce  great  men  ;  and  if  forms  of  polity  have  any 
thing  to  do  in  the  matter,  we  should  incline  to 
prefer  that  which  could  make  a  great  nation  felt 
to  be  such  and  loved  as  such  by  every  human  fibre 
in  it,  to  one  which  stunted  the  many  that  a  few 
favored  specimens  might  grow  the  taller  and  fairer. 
While  the  attitude  of  the  government  was  by 
the  necessity  of  the  case  expectant  so  far  as  slavery 
was  concerned,  it  is  also  true  that  the  people  ran 
before  it,  and  were  moved  by  a  deeper  impulse 
than  the  mere  instinct  of  self-preservation.  The 
public  conscience  gave  energy  and  intention  to  the 
public  will,  and  the  bounty  which  drew  our  best 
soldiers  to  the  ranks  was  an  idea.  The  game  was 
the  ordinary  game  of  war,  and  they  but  the  un 
reasoning  pieces  on  the  board ;  but  they  felt  that 
a  higher  reason  was  moving  them  in  a  game  where 
the  stake  was  the  life  not  merely  of  their  coun 
try,  but  of  a  principle  whose  rescue  was  to  make 
America  in  very  deed  a  New  World,  the  cradle 
of  a  fairer  manhood.  Weakness  was  to  be  no 
longer  the  tyrant's  opportunity,  but  the  victim's 
claim ;  labor  should  never  henceforth  be  degraded 
as  a  curse,  but  honored  as  that  salt  of  the  earth 


RECONSTRUCTION.  183 

which  keeps  life  sweet,  and  gives  its  savor  to  duty. 
To  be  of  good  family  should  mean  being  a  child  of 
the  one  Father  of  us  all ;  and  good  birth,  the  being 
born  into  God's  world,  and  not  into  a  fool's  para 
dise  of  man's  invention.  But  even  had  this  moral 
leaven  been  wanting,  had  the  popular  impulse  been 
merely  one  of  patriotism,  we  should  have  been  well 
content  to  claim  as  the  result  of  democracy  that 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  it  had 
mustered  an  army  that  knew  for.what  it  was  fight 
ing.  Nationality  is  no  dead  abstraction,  no  unreal 
sentiment,  but  a  living  and  operative  virtue  in  the 
heart  and  moral  nature  of  men.  It  enlivens  the 
dullest  soul  with  an  ideal  out  of  and  beyond  itself, 
lifting  every  faculty  to  a  higher  level  of  vision  and 
action.  It  enlarges  the  narrowest  intellect  with 
a  fealty  to  something  better  than  self.  It  eman 
cipates  men  from  petty  and  personal  interests, 'to 
make  them  conscious  of  sympathies  whose  society 
ennobles.  Life  has  a  deeper  meaning  when  its 
throb  beats  time  to  a  common  impulse  and  catches 
its  motion  from  the  general  heart. 

But  while  the  experience  of  the  last  four  years 
has  been  such,  with  all  its  sorrows,  as  to  make  us 
proud  of  our  strength  and  grateful  for  the  sources 
of  it,  we  cannot  but  feel  that  peace  will  put  to  the 
test  those  higher  qualities  which  war  leaves  in  re 
serve.  What  are  we  to  do  with  the  country  our 
arms  have  regained  ?  It  is  by  our  conduct  in  this 
stewardship,  and  not  by  our  rights  under  the  origi 
nal  compact  of  the  States,  that  our  policy  is  to  be 
justified.  The  glory  of  conquest  is  trifling  and 


184  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

barren,  unless  victory  clear  the  way  to  a  higher 
civilization,  a  more  solid  prosperity,  and  a  Union 
based  upon  reciprocal  benefits.  In  what  precise 
manner  the  seceding  States  shall  return,  whether 
by  inherent  right,  or  with  some  preliminary  pen 
ance  and  ceremony  of  readoption,  is  of  less  conse 
quence  than  what  they  shall  be  after  their  return. 
Dependent  provinces,  sullenly  submitting  to  a 
destiny  which  they  loathe,  would  be  a  burden  to  us, 
rather  than  an  increase  of  strength  or  an  element 
of  prosperity.  War  would  have  won  us  a  peace 
stripped  of  all  the  advantages  that  make  peace  a 
blessing.  We  should  have  so  much  more  territory, 
and  so  much  less  substantial  greatness.  We  did 
not  enter  upon  war  to  open  a  new  market,  or  fresh 
fields  for  speculators,  or  an  outlet  for  redundant 
population,  but  to  save  the  experiment  of  demo 
cracy  from  destruction,  and  put  it  in  a  fairer  way 
of  success  by  removing  the  single  disturbing  ele 
ment.  Our  business  now  is  not  to  allow  ourselves 
to  be  turned  aside  from  a  purpose  which  our  ex 
perience  thus  far  has  demonstrated  to  have  been 
as  wise  as  it  was  necessary,  and  to  see  to  it  that, 
whatever  be  the  other  conditions  of  reconstruction, 
democracy,  which  is  our  real  strength,  receive  no 
detriment. 

We  would  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  Con 
gress  should  lay  down  in  advance  a  fixed  rule  not 
to  be  departed  from  to  suit  the  circumstances  of 
special  cases  as  they  arise.  What  may  do  very 
well  for  Tennessee  may  not  be  as  good  for  South 
Carolina.  Wise  statesmanship  does  not  so  much 


RECONSTRUCTION.  185 

consist  in  the  agreement  of  its  forms  with  any 
abstract  ideal,  however  perfect,  as  in  its  adaptation 
to  the  wants  of  the  governed  and  its  capacity  of 
shaping  itself  to  the  demands  of  the  time.  It  is 
not  to  be  judged  by  its  intention,  but  by  its  results, 
and  those  will  be  proportioned  to  its  practical,  and 
not  its  theoretic,  excellence.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
soundness  of  understanding  has  shown  itself  in 
nothing  more  clearly  than  in  allowing  institutions 
to  be  formulated  gradually  by  custom,  convenience, 
or  necessity,  and  in  preferring  the  practical  comfort 
of  a  system  that  works,  to  the  French  method  of  a 
scientific  machinery  of  perpetual  motion,  demon- 
strably  perfect  in  all  its  parts,  and  yet  refusing  to 
go.  We  do  not  wish  to  see  scientific  treatment, 
however  admirable,  applied  to  the  details  of  recon 
struction,  if  that  is  to  be,  as  now  seems  probable, 
the  next  problem  that  is  to  try  our  intelligence  and 
firmness.  But  there  are  certain  points,  it  seems 
to  us,  on  which  it  is  important  that  public  opinion 
should  come  to  some  sort  of  understanding  in 
advance. 

The  peace  negotiations  have  been  of  service  in 
demonstrating  that  it  is  not  any  ill  blood  engen 
dered  by  war,  any  diversity  of  interests  properly 
national,  any  supposed  antagonism  of  race,  but 
simply  the  slaveholding  class,  that  now  stands 
between  us  and  peace,  as  four  years  ago  it  forced 
us  into  war.  Precisely  as  the  principle  of  Divine 
right  could  make  no  lasting  truce  with  the  French 
Revolution,  the  Satanic  right  of  the  stronger  to 
enslave  the  weaker  can  come  to  no  understanding 


186  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

with  democracy.  The  conflict  is  in  the  things,  not 
in  the  men,  and  one  or  the  other  must  abdicate. 
Of  course  the  leaders,  to  whom  submission  would 
be  ruin,  and  a  few  sincere  believers  in  the  doc 
trine  of  State  rights,  are  willing  to  sacrifice  even 
slavery  for  independence,  a  word  which  has  a 
double  meaning  for  some  of  them ;  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  an  offer  to  receive  the  seceding 
States  back  to  their  old  position  under  the  Consti 
tution  would  have  put  the  war  party  in  a  hopeless 
minority  at  the  South.  We  think  there  are  mani 
fest  symptoms  that  the  chinks  made  by  the  four 
years'  struggle  have  let  in  new  light  to  the  South 
ern  people,  however  it  may  be  with  their  ruling 
faction,  and  that  they  begin  to  suspect  a  diversity 
of  interest  between  themselves,  who  chiefly  suffer 
by  the  war,  and  the  small  class  who  bullied  them 
into  it  for  selfish  purposes  of  their  own.  However 
that  may  be,  the  late  proposal  of  Davis  and  Lee 
for  the  arming  of  slaves,  though  they  certainly  did 
not  so  intend  it,  has  removed  a  very  serious  ob 
stacle  from  our  path.  It  is  true  that  the  emanci 
pating  clause  was  struck  out  of  the  act  as  finally 
passed  by  the  shadowy  Congress  at  Richmond. 
But  this  was  only  for  the  sake  of  appearances. 
Once  arm  and  drill  the  negroes,  and  they  can 
never  be  slaves  again.  This  is  admitted  on  all 
hands,  and  accordingly,  whatever  the  words  of  the 
act  may  be,  it  practically  at  once  promotes  the 
negro  to  manhood  by  brevet,  as  it  were,  but  at  any 
rate  to  manhood.  For  the  offer  of  emancipation 
as  a  bounty  implies  reason  in  him  to  whom  it  is 


RECONSTRUCTION.  187 

offered  ;  nay,  more,  implies  a  capacity  for  progress 
and  a  wish  for  it,  which  are  in  themselves  valid 
titles  to  freedom.  This  at  a  step  puts  the  South 
back  to  the  position  held  by  her  greatest  men  in 
regard  to  slavery.  All  the  Scriptural  arguments, 
all  the  fitness  of  things,  all  the  physiological  dem 
onstrations,  all  Mr.  Stephens's  corner-stones,  Ham, 
Onesimus,  heels,  hair,  and  facial  angle, — all  are 
swept  out,  by  one  flirt  of  the  besom  of  Fate,  into 
the  inexorable  limbo  of  things  that  were  and  never 
should  have  been.  How  is  Truth  wounded  to 
death  in  the  house  of  her  friends !  The  highest 
authority  of  the  South  has  deliberately  renounced 
its  vested  interest  in  the  curse  of  Noah,  and  its 
right  to  make  beasts  of  black  men  because  St.  Paul 
sent  back  a  white  one  to  his  master.  Never  was 
there  a  more  exact  verification  of  the  Spanish 
proverb,  that  he  who  went  out  for  wool  may  come 
back  shorn.  Alas  for  Nott  and  Gliddon !  Thrice 
alas  for  Bishop  Hopkins !  With  slavery  they  lose 
their  hold  on  the  last  clue  by  which  human  reason 
could  find  its  way  to  a  direct  proof  of  the  bene 
volence  of  God  and  the  plenary  inspiration  of 
Scripture. 

All  that  we  have  learned  of  the  blacks  during 
the  war  makes  the  plan  of  arming  a  part  of  them 
to  help  maintain  the  master's  tyranny  over  the  rest 
seem  so  futile,  and  the  arguments  urged  against  it 
by  Mr.  Gholson  and  Mr.  Hunter  are  so  convincing, 
that  we  can  hardly  persuade  ourselves  that  the 
authors  of  it  did  not  intend  it  to  make  the  way 
easier,  not  to  independence,  but  to  reunion.  It  is 


188  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

said  to  argue  desperation  on  the  part  of  the  chief 
conspirators  at  Richmond,  and  it  undoubtedly  does ; 
but  we  see  in  what  we  believe  to  be  the  causes 
of  their  despair  something  more  hopeful  than  the 
mere  exhaustion  it  indicates.  It  is  simply  incredi 
ble  that  the  losses  of  a  four  years'  war  should  have 
drained  the  fighting  men  of  a  population  of  five 
millions,  or  anything  like  it ;  and  the  impossibil 
ity  of  any  longer  filling  the  Rebel  armies  even  by 
the  most  elaborate  system  of  press-gangs  proves 
to  our  mind  that  the  poorer  class  of  whites  have 
for  some  reason  or  other  deserted  the  cause  of  the 
wealthy  planters.  The  men  are  certainly  there, 
but  they  have  lost  all  stomach  for  fighting.  Here 
again  we  see  something  which  is  likely  to  make  a 
final  settlement  more  easy  than  it  would  have  been 
even  a  year  ago.  Though  the  fact  that  so  large  a 
proportion  of  the  Southern  people  cannot  read 
makes  it  harder  to  reach  them,  yet  our  soldiers 
have  circulated  among  them  like  so  many  North 
ern  newspapers,  and  it  is  impossible  that  this  in 
tercourse,  which  has  been  constant,  should  not  have 
suggested  to  them  many  ideas  of  a  kind  which  their 
treacherous  guides  would  gladly  keep  from  them. 
The  frantic  rage  of  Southern  members  of  Congress 
against  such  books  as  Helper's  can  be  explained 
only  by  their  fear  lest  their  poorer  constituents 
should  be  set  a-thinking,  for  the  notion  of  corrupt 
ing  a  field-hand  by  an  Abolition  document  is  too 
absurd  even  for  a  Wigfall  or  a  Charleston  editor. 

Here,  then,  are  two  elements  of  a  favorable  horo 
scope  for  our  future  ;  an  acknowledgment  of  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  189 

human  nature  of  the  negro  by  the  very  Sanhedrim 
of  the  South,  thus  removing  his  case  from  the  court 
of  ethics  to  that  of  political  economy ;  and  a  sus 
picion  on  the  part  of  the  Southern  majority  that 
something  has  been  wrong,  which  makes  them 
readier  to  see  and  accept  what  is  right.  We  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  there  is  any  very  large  amount  of 
even  latent  Unionism  at  the  South,  but  we  believe 
there  is  plenty  of  material  in  solution  there  which 
waits  only  to  be  precipitated  into  whatever  form  of 
crystal  we  desire.  We  must  not  forget  that  the 
main  elements  of  Southern  regeneration  are  to  be 
sought  in  the  South  itself,  and  that  such  elements 
are  abundant.  A  people  that  has  shown  so  much 
courage  and  constancy  in  a  bad  cause,  because  they 
believed  it  a  good  one,  is  worth  winning  even  by 
the  sacrifice  of  our  natural  feeling  of  resentment. 
If  we  forgive  the  negro  for  his  degradation  and 
his  ignorance,  in  consideration  of  the  system  of 
which  he  has  been  the  sacrifice,  we  ought  also  to 
make  every  allowance  for  the  evil  influence  of 
that  system  upon  the  poor  whites.  It  is  the  fatal 
necessity  of  all  wrong  to  revenge  itself  upon  those 
who  are  guilty  of  it,  or  even  accessory  to  it.  The 
oppressor  is  dragged  down  by  the  victim  of  his 
tyranny.  The  eternal  justice  makes  the  balance 
even ;  and  as  the  sufferer  by  unjust  laws  is  lifted 
above  his  physical  abasement  by  spiritual  compen 
sations  and  that  nearness  to  God  which  only  suffer 
ing  is  capable  of,  in  like  measure  are  the  material 
advantages  of  the  wrong-doer  counterpoised  by  a 
moral  impoverishment.  Our  duty  is  not  to  punish, 


190  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

but  to  repair  ;  and  the  cure  must  work  both  ways, 
emancipating  the  master  from  the  slave,  as  well  as 
the  slave  from  the  master.  Once  rid  of  slavery, 
which  was  the  real  criminal,  let  us  have  no  more 
reproaches,  justifiable  only  while  the  Southern  sin 
made  us  its  forced  accomplices ;  and  while  we  bind 
up  the  wounds  of  our  black  brother  who  had  fallen 
among  thieves  that  robbed  him  of  his  rights  as  a 
man,  let  us  not  harden  our  hearts  against  our  white 
brethren,  from  whom  interest  and  custom,  those 
slyer  knaves,  whose  fingers  we  have  felt  about  our 
own  pockets,  had  stolen  away  their  conscience  and 
their  sense  of  human  brotherhood. 

The  first  question  that  arises  in  the  mind  of 
everybody  in  thinking  of  reconstruction  is,  What  is 
to  be  done  about  the  negro  ?  After  the  war  is  over, 
there  will  be  our  Old  Man  of  the  Sea,  as  ready 
to  ride  us  as  ever.  If  we  only  emancipate  him, 
he  will  not  let  us  go  free.  We  must  do  something 
more  than  merely  this.  While  the  suffering  from 
them  is  still  sharp,  we  should  fix  it  in  our  minds  as 
a  principle,  that  the  evils  which  have  come  upon 
us  are  the  direct  and  logical  consequence  of  our 
forefathers  having  dealt  with  a  question  of  man  as 
they  would  with  one  of  trade  or  territory,  —  as  if 
the  rights  of  others  were  something  susceptible  of 
compromise,  —  as  if  the  laws  that  govern  the  moral, 
and,  through  it,  the  material  world,  would  stay 
their  operation  for  our  convenience.  It  is  well  to 
keep  this  present  in  the  mind,  because  in  the  gen 
eral  joy  and  hurry  of  peace  we  shall  be  likely  to 
forget  it  again,  and  to  make  concessions,  or  to 


RECONSTRUCTION.  191 

leave  things  at  loose  ends  for  time  to  settle,  —  as 
time  has  settled  the  blunders  of  our  ancestors. 
Let  us  concede  everything  except  what  does  not 
belong  to  us,  but  is  only  a  trust-property,  namely, 
the  principle  of  democracy  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  future  involved  in  the  normal  development  of 
that  principle. 

We  take  it  for  granted  at  the  outset,  that  the 
mind  of  the  country  is  made  up  as  to  making  no 
terms  with  slavery  in  any  way,  large  or  limited, 
open  or  covert.  Not  a  single  good  quality  trace 
able  to  this  system  has  been  brought  to  light  in  the 
white  race  at  the  South  by  the  searching  test  of 
war.  In  the  black  it  may  have  engendered  that 
touching  piety  of  which  we  have  had  so  many 
proofs,  and  it  has  certainly  given  them  the  unity 
of  interest  and  the  sympathy  of  intelligence  which 
make  them  everywhere  our  friends,  and  which  have 
saved  them  from  compromising  their  advantage, 
and  still  further  complicating  the  difficulties  of 
civil  war  by  insurrection.  But  what  have  been 
its  effects  upon  the  ruling  class,  which  is,  after  all, 
the  supreme  test  of  institutions?  It  has  made 
them  boastful,  selfish,  cruel,  and  false,  to  a  degree 
unparalleled  in  history.  So  far  from  having  given 
them  any  special  fitness  for  rule,  it  has  made  them 
incapable  of  any  but  violent  methods  of  govern 
ment,  and  unable  to  deal  with  the  simplest  prob 
lems  of  political  economy.  An  utter  ignorance 
of  their  own  countrymen  at  the  North  led  them 
to  begin  the  war,  and  an  equal  misconception  of 
Europe  encouraged  them  to  continue  it.  That 


192  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

they  have  shown  courage  is  true,  but  that  is  no 
exclusive  property  of  theirs,  and  the  military  ad 
vantage  they  seemed  to  possess  is  due  less  to  any 
superiority  of  their  own  than  to  the  extent  of  their 
territory  and  the  roadless  wildernesses  which  are 
at  once  the  reproach  and  the  fortification  of  their 
wasteful  system  of  agriculture.  Their  advantages 
in  war  have  been  in  proportion  to  their  disadvan 
tages  in  peace,  and  it  is  peace  which  most  convin 
cingly  tries  both  the  vigor  of  a  nation  and  the  wis 
dom  of  its  polity.  It  is  with  this  class  that  we 
shall  have  to  deal  in  arranging  the  conditions  of 
settlement ;  and  we  must  do  it  with  a  broad  view 
of  the  interests  of  the  whole  country  and  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  Southern  people,  whose  ignorance 
and  the  prejudices  consequent  from  it  made  it  so 
easy  to  use  them  as  the  instruments  of  their  own 
ruin.  No  immediate  advantage  must  blind  us  to 
the  real  objects  of  the  war,  —  the  securing  our  ex 
ternal  power  and  our  internal  tranquillity,  and  the 
making  them  inherent  and  indestructible  by  found 
ing  them  upon  the  common  welfare. 

The  first  condition  of  permanent  peace  is  to 
render  those  who  were  the  great  slaveholders  when 
the  war  began,  and  who  will  be  the  great  land 
holders  after  it  is  over,  powerless  for  mischief. 
What  punishment  should  be  inflicted  on  the  chief 
criminals  is  a  matter  of  little  moment.  The  South 
has  received  a  lesson  of  suffering  which  satisfies  all 
the  legitimate  ends  of  punishment,  and  as  for  ven 
geance,  it  is  contrary  to  our  national  temper  and 
the  spirit  of  our  government.  Our  great  object 


RECONSTRUCTION.  193 

should  be,  not  to  weaken,  but  to  strengthen  the 
South,  —  to  make  it  richer,  and  not  poorer.  We 
must  not  repeat  the  stupid  and  fatal  blunder  of 
slaveholding  publicists,  that  the  wealth  and  power 
of  one  portion  of  the  country  are  a  drain  upon  the 
resources  of  the  rest,  instead  of  being  their  natural 
feeders  and  invigorators.  Any  general  confiscation 
of  Rebel  property,  therefore,  seems  to  us  unthrifty 
housekeeping,  for  it  is  really  a  levying  on  our  own 
estate,  and  a  lessening  of  our  own  resources.  The 
people  of  the  Southern  States  will  be  called  upon 
to  bear  their  part  of  the  grievous  burden  of  taxa 
tion  which  the  war  will  leave  upon  our  shoulders, 
and  that  is  the  fairest  as  well  as  the  most  prudent 
way  of  making  them  contribute  to  our  national 
solvency.  All  irregular  modes  of  levying  contri 
butions,  however  just,  —  and  exactly  just  they  can 
seldom  be,  —  leave  discontent  behind  them,  while  a 
uniform  system,  where  every  man  knows  what  he 
is  to  pay  and  why  he  is  to  pay  it,  tends  to  restore 
stability  by  the  very  evenness  of  its  operation,  by 
its  making  national  interests  familiar  to  all,  and  by 
removing  any  sense  of  injustice.  Any  sweeping 
confiscation,  such  as  has  sometimes  been  proposed 
in  Congress  with  more  heat  than  judgment,  would 
render  the  South  less  available  for  revenue,  would 
retard  the  return  of  industry  to  its  legitimate  chan 
nels,  by  lessening  its  means,  and  would  not  destroy 
the  influence  of  the  misgoverning  aristocracy.  On 
the  contrary,  it  would  give  them  that  prestige  of 
misfortune  whose  power  over  the  sentiments  of 
mankind  is  the  moral  of  the  story  of  Stuarts  and 


194  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Bourbons  and  Bonapartes.  Retribution  they  should 
have,  but  let  them  have  it  in  the  only  way  worthy 
of  a  great  people  to  inflict.  Let  it  come  in  a  sense 
of  their  own  folly  and  sin,  brought  about  by  the 
magnanimity  of  their  conquerors,  by  the  return  of 
a  more  substantial  prosperity  born  of  the  new 
order  of  things,  so  as  to  convince,  instead  of  alien 
ating.  We  should  remember  that  it  is  our  country 
which  we  have  regained,  and  not  merely  a  rebel 
lious  faction  which  we  have  subdued. 

Whether  it  would  not  be  good  policy  for  the 
general  government  to  assume  all  the  wild  lands  in 
the  rebellious  States,  and  to  devote  the  proceeds  of 
their  sale  to  actual  settlers  to  the  payment  of  the 
national  debt,  is  worth  consideration.  Texas  alone, 
on  whose  public  lands  our  assumption  of  her  in 
debtedness  gives  us  an  equitable  claim,  would 
suffice  to  secure  our  liabilities  and  to  lighten  our 
taxation,  and  in  all  cases  of  land  granted  to  freed- 
men  no  title  should  vest  till  a  fair  price  had  been 
paid,  —  a  principle  no  less  essential  to  their  true 
interests  than  our  own.  That  these  people,  who 
are  to  be  the  peasantry  of  the  future  Southern 
States,  should  be  made  landholders,  is  the  main 
condition  of  a  healthy  regeneration  of  that  part  of 
the  country,  and  the  one  warranty  of  our  rightful 
repossession  of  it.  The  wealth  that  makes  a  nation 
really  strong,  and  not  merely  rich,  is  the  oppor 
tunity  for  industry,  intelligence,  and  well-being  of 
its  laboring  population.  This  is  the  real  country 
of  poor  men,  as  the  great  majority  must  always  be. 
No  glories  of  war  or  art,  no  luxurious  refinement  of 


RECONSTRUCTION.  195 

the  few,  can  give  them  a  sense  of  nationality  where 
this  is  wanting.  If  we  free  the  slave  without  giv 
ing  him  a  right  in  the  soil,  and  the  inducement  to 
industry  which  this  offers,  we  reproduce  only  a  more 
specious  form  of  all  the  old  abuses.  We  leave  all 
political  power  in  the  hands  of  the  wealthy  land 
holders,  where  it  was  before.  We  leave  the  poorer 
whites  unemancipated,  for  we  leave  labor  still  at 
the  mercy  of  capital,  and  with  its  old  stigma  of 
degradation.  Blind  to  the  lessons  of  all  experi 
ence,  we  deliberately  make  the  South  what  Ire 
land  was  when  Arthur  Young  travelled  there,  the 
country  richest  in  the  world  by  nature,  reduced  to 
irredeemable  poverty  and  hopeless  weakness  by  an 
upper  class  who  would  not,  and  a  lower  class  who 
could  not,  improve.  We  have  no  right  to  purchase 
dominion,  no  right  to  purchase  even  abolition,  at 
such  a  price  as  that.  No  uti  possidetis  conveys 
any  legitimate  title,  except  on  the  condition  of  wise 
administration  and  mutual  benefit. 

But  will  it  be  enough  to  make  the  freedmen 
landholders  merely?  Must  we  not  make  them 
voters  also,  that  they  may  have  that  power  of  self- 
protection  which  no  interference  of  government  can 
so  safely,  cheaply,  and  surely  exercise  in  their  be 
half  ?  We  answer  this  question  in  the  affirmative, 
for  reasons  both  of  expediency  and  justice.  At 
best,  the  difficulty,  if  not  settled  now,  will  come 
up  again  for  settlement  hereafter,  when  it  may  not 
be  so  easy  of  solution.  As  a  matter  of  expediency, 
it  is  always  wisest  to  shape  a  system  of  policy  with 
a  view  to  permanence,  much  more  than  to  imme- 


196  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

diate  convenience.  When  things  are  put  upon  a 
right  footing  at  first,  —  and  the  only  right  footing 
is  one  which  will  meet  the  inevitable  demands  of 
the  future  as  well  as  the  more  noisy  ones  of  the 
present, —  all  subsidiary  relations  will  of  necessity 
arrange  themselves  by  mutual  adaptation,  without 
constantly  calling  for  the  clumsy  interference  of 
authority.  We  must  leave  behind  us  no  expecta 
tion  and  no  fear  of  change,  to  unsettle  men's  minds 
and  dishearten  their  industry.  Both  the  late  mas 
ter  and  the  late  slave  should  begin  on  the  new 
order  of  things  with  a  sense  of  its  permanence  on 
the  one  hand  and  its  rightfulness  on  the  other. 
They  will  soon  learn  that  neither  intelligence  can 
do  without  labor,  nor  labor  without  intelligence, 
and  that  wealth  will  result  only  from  a  clearly  un 
derstood  and  reciprocally  beneficial  dependence  of 
each  upon  the  other.  Unless  we  make  the  black  a 
citizen,  we  take  away  from  the  white  the  strongest 
inducement  to  educate  and  enlighten  him.  As 
a  mere  proletary,  his  ignorance  is  a  temptation  to 
the  stronger  race ;  as  a  voter,  it  is  a  danger  to 
them  which  it  becomes  their  interest  to  remove. 
It  is  easy  to  manage  the  mob  of  New  York  for 
the  time  with  grape-shot,  but  it  is  the  power  for 
evil  which  their  suffrage  gives  them  that  will  at 
last  interest  all  classes,  by  reform  and  education, 
to  make  it  a  power  for  good. 

Under  the  head  of  expediency  comes  also  this 
other  consideration,  —  that,  unless  made  citizens, 
the  emancipated  blacks,  reckoned  as  they  must  be 
in  the  basis  of  representation,  and  yet  without 


RECONSTRUCTION.  197 

power  to  modify  the  character  of  the  representa 
tives  chosen,  will  throw  so  much  more  power  into 
the  hands  of  men  certain  to  turn  it  to  their  disad 
vantage,  and  only  too  probably  to  our  own.  This 
mass,  if  we  leave  it  inert,  may,  in  any  near  balance 
of  parties,  be  enough  to  crush  us ;  while,  if  we  en 
dow  it  with  life  and  volition,  if  we  put  it  in  the 
way  of  rising  in  intelligence  and  profiting  by  self- 
exertion,  it  will  be  the  best  garrison  for  maintain 
ing  the  supremacy  of  our  ideas,  till  they  have  had 
time  to  justify  themselves  by  experience.  Have 
we  endured  and  prosecuted  this  war  for  the  sake 
of  bringing  back  our  old  enemies  to  legislate  for 
us,  stronger  than  ever,  with  all  the  resentment  and 
none  of  the  instruction  of  defeat  ? 

But  as  a  measure  of  justice  also,  which  is  always 
the  highest  expediency,  we  are  in  favor  of  giving 
the  ballot  to  the  freedmen.  Our  answer  to  the 
question,  What  are  we  to  do  with  the  negro  ?  is 
short  and  simple.  Give  him  a  fair  chance.  We 
must  get  rid  of  the  delusion  that  right  is  in  any 
way  dependent  on  the  skin,  and  not  on  an  inward 
virtue.  Our  war  has  been  carried  on  for  the  prin 
ciples  of  democracy,  and  a  cardinal  point  of  those 
principles  is,  that  the  only  way  in  which  to  fit  men 
for  freedom  is  to  make  them  free,  the  only  way  to 
teach  them  how  to  use  political  power  is  to  give  it 
them.  Both  South  and  North  have  at  last  con 
ceded  the  manhood  of  the  negro,  and  the  question 
now  is  how  we  shall  make  that  manhood  available 
and  profitable  to  him  and  to  us.  Democracy  does 
not  mean,  to  any  intelligent  person,  an  attempt  at 


198  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

the  impossibility  of  making  one  man  as  good  as 
another.  But  it  certainly  does  mean  the  making 
of  one  man's  manhood  as  good  as  another's  and  the 
giving  to  every  human  being  the  right  of  unlim 
ited  free  trade  in  all  his  faculties  and  acquire 
ments.  We  believe  the  white  race,  by  their  intel 
lectual  and  traditional  superiority,  will  retain  suffi 
cient  ascendency  to  prevent  any  serious  mischief 
from  the  new  order  of  things.  We  admit  that  the 
whole  subject  bristles  with  difficulties,  and  we 
would  by  no  means  discuss  or  decide  it  on  senti 
mental  grounds.  But  our  choice  would  seem  to  be 
between  unqualified  citizenship,  to  depend  on  the 
ability  to  read  and  write,  if  you  will,  and  setting 
the  blacks  apart  in  some  territory  by  themselves. 
There  are,  we  think,  insuperable  objections  to  this 
last  plan.  It  would  put  them  beyond  the  reach  of 
all  good  influence  from  the  higher  civilization  of 
the  whites,  without  which  they  might  relapse  into 
barbarism  like  the  Maroons  of  Surinam,  and  it 
would  deprive  the  whole  Southern  country  of  the 
very  labor  it  needs.  As  to  any  prejudices  which 
should  prevent  the  two  races  from  living  together, 
it  would  soon  yield  to  interest  and  necessity.  The 
mere  antipathy  of  color  is  not  so  strong  there  as 
here,  and  the  blacks  would  form  so  very  large  a 
majority  of  the  laboring  class  as  not  to  excite  the 
jealousy  of  rivalry.  We  can  remember  when  the 
prejudice  against  the  Celt  was  as  strong  in  many  of 
the  Free  States  as  that  against  the  African  could 
ever  be  at  the  South.  It  is  not  very  long  since 
this  prejudice  nearly  gave  a  new  direction  to  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  199 

politics  of  the  country.  Yet,  like  all  prejudices, 
it  had  not  coherence  enough  to  keep  any  consider 
able  party  long  together. 

The  objections  to  the  plan  are,  of  course,  the 
same  which  lie  against  any  theory  of  universal 
suffrage.  These  are  many  and  strong,  if  consid 
ered  abstractly ;  but  we  assume  that  theory  to  be 
admitted  now  as  the  rule  of  our  political  practice, 
and  its  evils  as  a  working  system  have  not  been 
found  so  great,  taking  the  country  at  large,  as 
nearly  to  outweigh  its  advantages.  Moreover,  as 
we  have  said  before,  it  compels  the  redress  of  its 
own  abuses,  and  the  remedy  is  one  which  is  a  bene 
fit  to  the  whole  community,  for  it  is  simply  to  raise 
the  general  standard  of  intelligence.  It  is  supe 
rior,  certainly,  to  the  English  system,  in  which  the 
body  of  the  nation  is  alienated  from  its  highest 
intellect  and  culture.  We  think  the  objections  are 
quite  as  strong  to  any  elective  plan  of  government, 
for  a  select  majority  is  as  liable  to  be  governed  by 
its  interests  and  passions  as  any  popular  one.  Wit 
ness  the  elections  at  Oxford.  Is  the  average  wis 
dom  or  unselfishness  of  mankind  so  high  that  there 
should  be  no  narrow  minds  and  no  selfish  hearts 
in  any  body  of  electors,  however  carefully  selected  ? 
The  only  infallible  sovereign  on  earth  is  chosen  by 
the  majority  of  a  body  in  which  passion  and  intrigue 
and  the  influence  (sometimes  none  of  the  purest) 
of  conflicting  courts  are  certainly  not  inoperative. 
Man  is  perhaps  not  the  wisest  of  animals,  but  he 
has  at  least  as  keen  a  sense  of  his  own  advantage 
in  a  hovel  as  in  a  palace,  and  what  is  for  the  inter- 


200  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

est  of  the  masses  of  the  people  is  not  very  far  from 
being  for  that  of  the  country.  It  is  said,  to  be 
sure,  that  we  are  inadequately  represented  in  Con 
gress  ;  but  a  representative  is  apt  to  be  a  tolerably 
exact  exponent  of  the  merits  of  his  constituency, 
and  we  must  look  for  relief  to  the  general  im 
provement  of  our  people  in  morals,  manners,  and 
culture.  We  doubt  if  the  freedmen  would  send 
worse  members  to  Congress  than  some  in  whose 
election  merchants  and  bankers  and  even  doctors 
of  divinity  have  been  accomplices. 

With  the  end  of  the  war  the  real  trial  of  our 
statesmanship,  our  patriotism,  and  our  patience 
will  begin.  The  passions  excited  by  it  will,  no 
doubt,  subside  in  due  time,  but  meanwhile  it  be 
hooves  the  party  in  possession  of  the  government  to 
conciliate  patriotic  men  of  all  shades  of  opinion  by 
a  liberal,  manly  and  unpartisan  policy.  Repub 
licans  must  learn  to  acknowledge  that  all  crit 
icisms  of  their  measures  have  not  been  dictated 
by  passion  or  disloyalty,  that  many  moderate  and 
honest  men,  many  enlightened  ones,  have  really 
found  reason  for  apprehension  in  certain  arbitrary 
stretches  of  authority,  nay,  may  even  have  been 
opposed  to  the  war  itself,  without  being  in  love 
with  slavery,  and  without  deserving  to  be  called 
Copperheads.  Many  have  doubted  the  wisdom  of 
our  financial  policy,  without  being  unpatriotic.  It 
is  precisely  this  class,  dispassionate  and  moderate 
in  their  opinions,  whose  help  we  shall  need  in  heal 
ing  the  wounds  of  war  and  giving  equanimity  to 
our  counsels.  We  hope  to  see  a  course  of  action 


RECONSTRUCTION.  201 

entered  upon  which  shall  draw  them  to  its  sup 
port.  In  peace,  governments  cannot,  as  in  war, 
find  strength  in  the  enthusiasm  and  even  the  pas 
sions  of  the  people,  but  must  seek  it  in  the  ap 
proval  of  their  judgment  and  convictions.  Dur 
ing  war,  all  the  measures  of  the  dominant  party 
have  a  certain  tincture  of  patriotism ;  declamation 
serves  very  well  the  purposes  of  eloquence,  and 
fervor  of  persuasion  passes  muster  as  reason  ;  but 
in  peaceful  times  everything  must  come  back  to  a 
specific  standard,  and  stand  or  fall  on  its  own 
merits.  Our  faith  is  not  unmixed  with  apprehen 
sion  when  we  think  of  the  immediate  future,  yet  it 
is  an  abiding  faith  nevertheless  ;  and  with  the  ex 
perience  of  the  last  four  years  to  sustain  us,  we 
are  willing  to  believe  almost  anything  good  of  the 
American  people,  and  to  say  with  the  saint,  Credi- 
mus  quia  impossibile  est.  We  see  no  good  reason 
why,  if  we  use  our  victory  with  the  moderation  be 
coming  men  who  profess  themselves  capable  of  self- 
government,  conceding  all  that  can  be  conceded 
without  danger  to  the  great  principle  which  has 
been  at  stake,  the  North  and  the  South  should  not 
live  more  harmoniously  together  in  the  future  than 
in  the  past,  now  that  the  one  rock  of  offence  has 
been  blasted  out  of  the  way.  We  do  not  believe 
that  the  war  has  tended  to  lessen  their  respect  for 
each  other,  or  that  it  has  left  scars  which  will  take 
to  aching  again  with  every  change  of  the  political 
weather.  We  must  bind  the  recovered  communi 
ties  to  us  with  hooks  of  interest,  by  convincing 
them  that  we  desire  their  prosperity  as  an  integral 


202  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

part  of  our  own.  For  a  long  while  yet  there  will 
be  a  latent  disaffection,  even  when  the  outward 
show  may  be  fair,  as  in  spring  the  ground  often 
stiffens  when  the  thermometer  is  above  the  freezing 
point.  But  we  believe,  in  spite  of  this,  that  all 
this  untowardness  will  yield  to  the  gradual  wooing 
of  circumstances,  and  that  it  is  to  May,  and  not 
December,  that  we  are  to  look  forward.  Even 
in  our  finances,  which  are  confessedly  our  weakest 
point,  we  doubt  if  the  experience  of  any  other  na 
tion  will  enable  us  to  form  a  true  conception  of  our 
future.  We  shall  have,  beyond  question,  the  ordi 
nary  collapse  of  speculation  that  follows  a  sudden 
expansion  of  paper  currency.  We  shall  have  that 
shivering  and  expectant  period  when  the  sails  flap 
and  the  ship  trembles  ere  it  takes  the  wind  on  the 
new  tack.  But  it  is  no  idle  boast  to  say  that  there 
never  was  a  country  with  such  resources  as  ours. 
In  Europe  the  question  about  a  man  always  is, 
What  is  he  ?  Here  it  is  as  invariably,  What  does 
he  do  ?  And  in  that  little  difference  lies  the  se 
curity  of  our  national  debt  for  whoever  has  eyes. 
In  America  there  is  no  idle  class  supported  at  the 
expense  of  the  nation,  there  is  no  splendid  poor- 
house  of  rank  or  office,  but  every  man  is  at 
work  adding  his  share  to  the  wealth,  and  to  that 
extent  insuring  the  solvency,  of  the  country.  Our 
farm,  indeed,  is  mortgaged,  but  it  is  a  mortgage 
which  the  yearly  profits  will  pay  off. 

Those  who  look  upon  the  war  as  a  wicked  cru 
sade  of  the  North  against  the  divinely  sanctioned 
institutions  of  the  South,  and  those  who  hope  even 


RECONSTRUCTION.  203 

yet  to  reknit  the  monstrous  league  between  slavery 
and  a  party  calling  itself  Democratic,  will  of  course 
be  willing  to  take. back  the  seceding  States  without 
conditions.  Neither  of  these  classes  is  any  longer 
formidable,  either  by  its  numbers  or  the  character 
of  its  leaders.  But  there  is  yet  a  third  class,  who 
seem  to  have  confused  their  minds  with  some 
fancied  distinction  between  civil  and  foreign  war. 
Holding  the  States  to  be  indestructible,  they  seem 
to  think  that,  by  the  mere  cessation  of  hostilities, 
they  are  to  resume  their  places  as  if  nothing  had 
happened,  or  rather  as  if  this  had  been  a  mere 
political  contest  which  we  had  carried.  But  it  is 
with  the  people  of  the  States,  and  not  with  any 
abstract  sovereignty,  that  we  have  been  at  war, 
and  it  is  of  them  that  we  are  to  exact  conditions, 
and  not  of  some  convenient  quasi-entity,  which  is 
not  there  when  the  battle  is  raging,  and  is  there 
when  the  terms  of  capitulation  are  to  be  settled. 
No,  it  is  slavery  which  made  this  war,  and  slavery 
which  must  pay  the  damages.  While  we  should 
not  by  any  unseemly  exultation  remind  the  South 
ern  people  that  they  have  been  conquered,  we  should 
also  not  be  weak  enough  to  forget  that  we  have  won 
the  right  of  the  victor.  And  what  is  that  right,  if 
it  be  not  to  exact  indemnity  for  the  past  and  secu 
rity  for  the  future?  And  what  more  nobly  and 
satisfactorily  fulfils  both  those  conditions,  than 
utterly  to  extinguish  the  cause  of  quarrel  ?  What 
we  fear  is  the  foolish  and  weak  good-nature  inher 
ent  in  popular  government,  but  against  which  mon 
archies  and  aristocracies  are  insured  by  self-interest, 


204  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

which  the  prospect  of  peace  is  sure  to  arouse,  and 
which  may  make  our  settlement  a  stage-reconcilia 
tion,  where  everybody  rushes  into  the  arms  of  every 
body  else  with  a  fervor  which  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  living  relations  of  the  actors.  We  believe 
that  the  public  mind  should  be  made  up  as  to  what 
are  the  essential  conditions  of  real  and  lasting 
peace,  before  it  is  subjected  to  the  sentimental 
delusions  of  the  inevitable  era  of  good  feeling, 
in  which  the  stronger  brother  is  so  apt  to  play 
the  part  of  Esau.  If  we  are  to  try  the  experi 
ment  of  democracy  fairly,  it  must  be  tried  in  its 
fullest  extent,  and  not  half-way.  The  theory  which 
grants  political  power  to  the  ignorant  white  for 
eigner  need  not  be  squeamish  about  granting  it  to 
the  ignorant  black  native,  for  the  gist  of  the  matter 
is  in  the  dark  mind,  and  not  the  more  or  less  dusky 
skin.  Of  course  we  shall  be  met  by  the  usual 
fallacy,  — Would  you  confer  equality  on  the  blacks? 
But  the  answer  is  a  very  simple  one.  Equality 
cannot  be  conferred  on  any  man,  be  he  white  or 
black.  If  he  be  capable  of  it,  his  title  is  from 
God,  and  not  from  us.  The  opinion  of  the  North 
is  made  up  on  the  subject  of  emancipation,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  announced  it  as  the  one  essential 
preliminary  to  the  readmission  of  the  insurgent 
States.  To  our  mind,  citizenship  is  the  necessary 
consequence,  as  it  is  the  only  effectual  warranty, 
of  freedom ;  and  accordingly  we  are  in  favor  of 
distinctly  settling  beforehand  some  conditional 
right  of  admission  to  it.  We  have  purposely 
avoided  any  discussion  on  gradualism  as  an  ele- 


RECONSTRUCTION.  205 

ment  in  emancipation,  because  we  consider  its  evil 
results  to  have  been  demonstrated  in  the  British 
West  Indies.  True  conservative  policy  is  not  an 
anodyne  hiding  away  our  evil  from  us  in  a  brief 
forgetf ulness.  It  looks  to  the  long  future  of  a 
nation,  and  dares  the  heroic  remedy  where  it  is 
scientifically  sure  of  the  nature  of  the  disease. 
The  only  desperate  case  for  a  people  is  where  its 
moral  sense  is  paralyzed,  and  the  first  symptom 
is  a  readiness  to  accept  an  easy  expedient  at  the 
sacrifice  of  a  difficult  justice.  The  relation  which 
is  to  be  final  and  permanent  cannot  be  too  soon 
decided  on  and  put  in  working  order,  whether  for 
the  true  interest  of  master  or  slave ;  and  the  only 
safe  relation  is  one  that  shall  be  fearlessly  true  to 
the  principles  in  virtue  of  which  we  asserted  our 
own  claim  to  autonomy,  and  our  right  to  compel 
obedience  to  the  government  so  established.  Any 
thing  short  of  that  has  the  weakness  of  an  expe 
dient  which  will  erelong  compel  us  to  reconstruct 
our  reconstruction,  and  the  worse  weakness  of  hy 
pocrisy,  which  will  sooner  or  later  again  lay  us 
open  to  the  retribution  of  that  eternal  sincerity 
which  brings  all  things  at  last  to  the  test  of  its 
own  unswerving  standard. 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,  OR  KILL  IT? 

1865. 

IT  has  been  said  that  the  American  people  are 
less  apt  than  others  to  profit  by  experience,  because 
the  bustle  of  their  lives  keeps  breaking  the  thread 
of  that  attention  which  is  the  material  of  memory, 
till  no  one  has  patience  or  leisure  to  spin  from  it  a 
continuous  thread  of  thought.  We  suspect  that 
this  is  not  more  true  of  us  than  of  other  nations,  — 
than  it  is  of  all  people  who  read  newspapers. 
Great  events  are  perhaps  not  more  common  than 
they  used  to  be,  but  a  vastly  greater  number  of 
trivial  incidents  are  now  recorded,  and  this  dust 
of  time  gets  in  our  eyes.  The  telegraph  strips  his 
tory  of  everything  down  to  the  bare  fact,  but  it 
does  not  observe  the  true  proportions  of  things, 
and  we  must  make  an  effort  to  recover  them.  In 
brevity  and  cynicism  it  is  a  mechanical  Tacitus, 
giving  no  less  space  to  the  movements  of  Sala  than 
of  Sherman,  as  impartial  a  leveller  as  death.  It 
announces  with  equal  sangfroid  the  surrender  of 
Kirby  Smith  and  the  capture  of  a  fresh  rebel 
governor,  reducing  us  to  the  stature  at  which  pos 
terity  shall  reckon  us.  Eminent  contemporaneous 
ness  may  see  here  how  much  space  will  be  allotted 
to  it  in  the  historical  compends  and  biographical 


SCOTCH   THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT?     207 

dictionaries  of  the  next  generation.  In  artless 
irony  the  telegraph  is  unequalled  among  the  sat 
irists  of  this  generation.  But  this  short-hand  dia 
rist  confounds  all  distinctions  of  great  and  little, 
and  roils  the  memory  with  minute  particles  of  what 
is  oddly  enough  called  intelligence.  We  read  in 
successive  paragraphs  the  appointment  of  a  Pro 
visional  Governor  of  North  Carolina,  whose  fitness 
or  want  of  it  may  be  the  turning-point  of  our  fu 
ture  history,  and  the  nomination  of  a  minister,  who 
will  at  most  only  bewilder  some  foreign  court  with 
a  more  desperately  helpless  French  than  his  pre 
decessor.  The  conspiracy  trial  at  Washington, 
whose  result  will  have  absolutely  no  effect  on  the 
real  affairs  of  the  nation,  occupies  for  the  moment 
more  of  the  public  mind  and  thought  than  the 
question  of  reconstruction,  which  involves  the  life 
or  death  of  the  very  principle  we  have  been  fight 
ing  for  these  four  years. 

Undoubtedly  the  event  of  the  day,  whatever  it 
may  be,  is  apt  to  become  unduly  prominent,  and  to 
thrust  itself  obscuringly  between  us  and  the  per 
haps  more  important  event  of  yesterday,  where  the 
public  appetite  demands  fresh  gossip  rather  than 
real  news,  and  the  press  accordingly  keeps  its  spies 
everywhere  on  the  lookout  for  trifles  that  become 
important  by  being  later  than  the  last.  And  yet 
this  minuteness  of  triviality  has  its  value  also. 
Our  sensitive  sheet  gives  us  every  morning  the 
photograph  of  yesterday,  and  enables  us  to  detect 
and  to  study  at  leisure  that  fleeting  expression  of 
the  time  which  betrays  its  character,  and  which 


208  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

might  altogether  escape  us  in  the  idealized  histori 
cal  portrait.  We  cannot  estimate  the  value  of  the 
items  in  our  daily  newspaper,  because  the  world  to 
which  they  relate  is  too  familiar  and  prosaic ;  but 
a  hundred  years  hence  some  Thackeray  will  find 
them  full  of  picturesque  life  and  spirit.  The 
"  Chronicle  "  of  the  Annual  Register  makes  the 
England  of  the  last  century  more  vividly  real  to 
us  than  any  history.  The  jests  which  Pompeian 
idlers  scribbled  on  the  walls,  while  Vesuvius  was 
brooding  its  fiery  conspiracy  under  their  feet,  bring 
the  scene  nearer  home  to  us  than  the  letter  of 
Pliny,  and  deepen  the  tragedy  by  their  trifling 
contrast,  like  the  grave-diggers'  unseemly  gabble  in 
Hamlet.  Perhaps  our  judgment  of  history  is  made 
sounder,  and  our  view  of  it  more  lifelike,  when  we 
are  so  constantly  reminded  how  the  little  things  of 
life  assert  their  place  alongside  the  great  ones,  and 
how  healthy  the  constitution  of  the  race  is,  how 
sound  its  digestion,  how  gay  its  humor,  that  can 
take  the  world  so  easily  while  our  continent  is 
racked  with  fever  and  struggling  for  life  against 
the  doctors. 

"  Let  Hercules  himself  do  what  he  may, 
The  cat  will  mew,  the  dog  must  have  his  day." 

It  is  always  pleasant  to  meet  Dame  Clio  over  the 
tea-table,  as  it  were,  where  she  is  often  more  enter 
taining,  if  not  more  instructive,  than  when  she  puts 
on  the  loftier  port  and  more  ceremonious  habit 
of  a  Muse.  These  inadvertences  of  history  are 
pleasing.  We  are  no  longer  foreigners,  in  any 
age  of  the  world,  but  feel  that  in  a  few  days  we 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT?     209 

could  have  accommodated  ourselves  there,  and  that, 
wherever  men  are,  we  are  not  far  from  home.  The 
more  we  can  individualize  and  personify,  the  more 
lively  our  sympathy.  Man  interests  us  scientifi 
cally,  but  men  claim  us  through  all  that  we  have 
made  a  part  of  our  nature  by  education  and  cus 
tom.  We  would  give  more  to  know  what  Xeno- 
phon's  soldiers  gossiped  about  round  their  camp- 
fires,  than  for  all  the  particulars  of  their  retreat. 
Sparta  becomes  human  to  us  when  we  think  of 
Agesilaus  on  his  hobby-horse.  Finding  that  those 
heroic  figures  romped  with  their  children,  we  begin 
for  the  first  time  to  suspect  that  they  ever  really 
existed  as  much  as  Robinson  Crusoe.  Without 
these  personal  traits,  antiquity  seems  as  unreal  to 
us  as  Sir  Thomas  More's  Utopia.  It  is,  indeed, 
surprising  how  little  of  real  life  what  is  reckoned 
solid  literature  has  preserved  to  us,  voluminous  as 
it  is.  Where  does  chivalry  at  last  become  some 
thing  more  than  a  mere  procession  of  plumes  and 
armor,  to  be  lamented  by  Burke,  except  in  some  of 
the  less  ambitious  verses  of  the  Trouv£res,  where 
we  hear  the  canakin  clink  too  emphatically,  per 
haps,  but  which  at  least  paint  living  men  and  pos 
sible  manners?  Tennyson's  knights  are  cloudy, 
gigantic,  of  no  age  or  country,  like  the  heroes  of 
Ossian.  They  are  creatures  without  stomachs. 
Homer  is  more  condescending,  and  though  we 
might  not  be  able  to  draw  the  bow  of  Ulysses,  we 
feel  quite  at  home  with  him  and  Eumoeus  over 
their  roast  pork. 

We  cannot  deny  that  the  poetical  view  of  any 


210  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

period  is  higher,  and  in  the  deepest  sense  truer, 
than  all  others ;  but  we  are  thankful  also  for  the 
penny-a-liner,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  who  re 
flects  the  whims  and  humors,  the  enthusiasms  and 
weaknesses,  of  the  public  in  unguarded  moments. 
Is  it  so  certain,  after  all,  that  we  should  not  be  in 
teresting  ourselves  in  other  quite  as  nugatory  mat 
ters  if  these  were  denied  us  ?  In  one  respect,  and 
no  unimportant  one,  the  instantaneous  dispersion 
of  news  and  the  universal  interest  in  it  have  af 
fected  the  national  thought  and  character.  The 
whole  people  have  acquired  a  certain  metropolitan 
temper ;  they  feel  everything  at  once  and  in  com 
mon  ;  a  single  pulse  sends  anger,  grief,  or  triumph 
through  the  whole  country  ;  one  man  sitting  at  the 
keyboard  of  the  telegraph  in  Washington  sets  the 
chords  vibrating  to  the  same  tune  from  sea  to  sea ; 
and  this  simultaneousness,  this  unanimity,  deepens 
national  consciousness  and  intensifies  popular  emo 
tion.  Every  man  feels  himself  a  part,  sensitive 
and  sympathetic,  of  this  vast  organism,  a  partner 
in  its  life  or  death.  The  sentiment  of  patriotism 
is  etherealized  and  ennobled  by  it,  is  kindled  by 
the  more  or  less  conscious  presence  of  an  ideal  ele 
ment  ;  and  the  instinctive  love  of  a  few  familiar 
hills  and  fields  widens,  till  Country  is  no  longer  an 
abstraction,  but  a  living  presence,  felt  in  the  heart 
and  operative  in  the  conscience,  like  that  of  an  ab 
sent  mother.  \  It  is  no  trifling  matter  that  thirty 
millions  of  men  should  be  thinking  the  same 
thought  and  feeling  the  same  pang  at  a  single  mo 
ment  of  time,  and  that  these  vast'  parallels  of  lati- 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT1     211 

tude  should  become  a  neighborhood  more  intimate 
than  many  a  country  village.  The  dream  of  Hu 
man  Brotherhood  seems  to  be  coming  true  at  last. 
The  peasant  who  dipped  his  net  in  the  Damibe,  or 
trapped  the  beaver  on  its  banks,  perhaps  never 
heard  of  Caesar  or  of  Caesar's  murder ;  but  the  shot 
that  shattered  the  forecasting  brain,  and  curdled 
the  warm,  sweet  heart  of  the  most  American  of 
Americans,  echoed  along  the  wires  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  a  continent,  swelling  all  eyes 
at  once  with  tears  of  indignant  sorrow.  Here  was 
a  tragedy  fulfilling  the  demands  of  Aristotle,  and 
purifying  with  an  instantaneous  throb  of  pity  and 
terror  a  theatre  of  such  proportions  as  the  world 
never  saw.  We  doubt  if  history  ever  recorded  an 
event  so  touching  and  awful  as  this  sympathy,  so 
wholly  emancipated  from  the  toils  of  space  and 
time  that  it  might  seem  as  if  earth  were  really  sen 
tient,  as  some  have  dreamed,  or  the  great  god 
Pan  alive  again  to  make  the  hearts  of  nations  stand 
still  with  his  shout.  What  is  Beethoven's  "  Fu 
neral  March  for  the  Death  of  a  Hero  "  to  the  sym 
phony  of  love,  pity,  and  wrathful  resolve  which  the 
telegraph  of  that  April  morning  played  on  the 
pulses  of  a  nation  ? 

It  has  been  said  that  our  system  of  town  meet 
ings  made  our  Revolution  possible,  by  educating 
the  people  in  self-government.  But  this  was  at 
most  of  partial  efficacy,  while  the  newspaper  and 
telegraph  gather  the  whole  nation  into  a  vast  town- 
meeting,  where  every  one  hears  the  affairs  of  the 
country  discussed,  and  where  the  better  judgment 


212  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

is  pretty  sure  to  make  itself  valid  at  last.  No 
memorable  thing  is  said  or  done,  no  invention  or 
discovery  is  made,  that  some  mention  of  it  does  not 
sooner  or  later  reach  the  ears  of  a  majority  of 
Americans.  It  is  this  constant  mental  and  moral 
stimulus  which  gives  them  the  alertness  and  viva 
city,  the  wide-awakeness  of  temperament,  charac 
teristic  of  dwellers  in  great  cities,  and  which  has 
been  remarked  on  by  English  tourists  as  if  it  were 
a  kind  of  physiological  transformation.  They  seem 
to  think  we  have  lost  something  of  that  solidity  of 
character  which  (with  all  other  good  qualities)  they 
consider  the  peculiar  inheritance  of  the  British 
race,  though  inherited  in  an  elder  brother's  pro 
portion  by  the  favored  dwellers  in  the  British  Isles. 
We  doubt  if  any  substantial  excellence  is  lost  by 
this  supplying  of  the  intellectual  faculties,  and 
bringing  the  nervous  system  nearer  the  surface 
by  the  absorption  of  superfluous  fat.  What  is 
lost  in  bulk  may  be  gained  in  spring.  It  is 
true  that  the  clown,  with  his  parochial  horizon, 
his  diet  inconveniently  thin,  and  his  head  conveni 
ently  thick,  whose  notion  of  greatness  is  a  prize 
pig,  and  whose  patriotism  rises  or  falls  with  the 
strength  of  his  beer,  is  a  creature  as  little  likely 
to  be  met  with  here  as  the  dodo,  his  only  rival 
in  the  qualities  that  make  up  a  good  citizen ;  but 
this  is  no  result  of  climatic  influences.  Such  crea 
tures  are  the  contemporaries  of  an  earlier  period 
of  civilization  than  ours.  Nor  is  it  so  clear  that 
solidity  is  always  a  virtue,  and  lightness  a  vice  in 
character,  any  more  than  in  bread,  or  that  the 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,    OR  KILL  ITf     213 

leaven  of  our  institutions  works  anything  else  than 
a  wholesome  ferment  and  aeration.  The  experi 
ence  of  the  last  four  years  is  enough  to-  prove  that 
sensibility  may  consist  with  tenacity  of  purpose, 
and  that  enthusiasm  may  become  a  permanent 
motive  where  the  conviction  of  the  worth  of  its 
object  is  profound  and  logical.  There  are  things 
in  this  universe  deeper  and  higher,  more  solid  even, 
than  the  English  Constitution.  If  that  is  the  per 
fection  of  human  wisdom  and  a  sufficing  object  of 
faith  and  worship  for  our  cousins  over  the  water, 
on  the  other  hand  God's  dealing  with  this  chosen 
people  is  preparing  them  to  conceive  of  a  perfec 
tion  of  divine  wisdom,  of  a  constitution  in  the 
framing  of  which  man's  wit  had  no  share,  and  which 
shall  yet  be  supreme,  as  it  is  continually  more  or 
less  plainly  influential  in  the  government  of  the 
world.  We  may  need  even  sterner  teaching  than 
any  we  have  yet  had,  but  we  have  faith  that  the 
lesson  will  be  learned  at  last. 

If  the  assertion  which  we  alluded  to  at  the  out 
set  were  true,  if  we,  more  than  others,  are  apt  to 
forget  the  past  in  the  present,  the  work  of  Mr. 
Moore  l  would  do  much  in  helping  us  to  recover 
what  we  have  lost.  Had  its  execution  been  as  com 
plete  as  its  plan  was  excellent,  it  would  have  left 
nothing  to  be  desired.  Its  want  of  order  may  be 
charged  upon  the  necessity  of  monthly  publication ; 
but  there  are  other  defects  which  this  will  hardly 
excuse.  The  editor  seems  to  have  become  grad 
ually  helpless  before  the  mass  of  material  that 

1  The  Rebellion  Record.    Edited  by  Frank  Moore.     Six  vols. 


214  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

heaped  itself  about  him,  and  to  have  shovelled 
from  sheer  despair  of  selection.  In  the  documen 
tary  part  he  is  sufficiently,  sometimes  even  depres- 
singly  full,  and  he  has  preserved  a  great  deal  of 
fugitive  poetry  from  both  sides,  much  of  it  spirited, 
and  some  of  it  vigorously  original ; l  but  he  has 
frequently  neglected  to  give  his  authorities.  His 
extracts  from  the  newspapers  of  the  day,  especially 
from  Southern  and  foreign  ones,  are  provokingly 
few,  and  his  department  of  "  incidents  and  rumors," 
the  true  mirror  of  the  time,  inadequate  both  in 
quantity  and  quality.  In  spite  of  these  defects, 
however,  there  is  enough  to  recall  vividly  the  fea 
tures  of  the  time  at  any  marked  period  during  the 
war,  to  renew  the  phases  of  feeling,  to  trace  the 
slowly  gathering  current  of  opinion,  and  to  see 
a  definite  purpose  gradually  orbing  itself  out  of 
the  chaos  of  plans  and  motives,  hopes,  fears,  en 
thusiasms,  and  despondencies.  We  do  not  propose 
to  review  the  book,  —  we  might,  indeed,  almost  as 
well  undertake  to  review  the  works  of  Father  Time 
himself,  —  but,  relying  chiefly  on  its  help  in  piecing 
out  our  materials,  shall  try  to  freshen  the  memory 
of  certain  facts  and  experiences  worth  bearing  in 
mind  either  for  example  or  warning. 

It  is  of  importance,  especially  considering  the 
part  which  what  are  called  the  "  leading  minds  "  of 
the  South  are  expected  to  play  in  reconstruction,  to 
keep  clearly  before  our  eyes  the  motives  and  the 
manner  of  the  Rebellion.  Perhaps  we  should  say 

i  see  especially  The  Old  Sergeant,  a  remarkable  poem  by  For- 
ceythe  Willson,  in  the  sixth  volume. 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  ITf     215 

inducements  rather  than  motives,  for  of  these  there 
was  but  a  single  one  put  forward  by  the  seceding 
States,  namely,  the  obtaining  security,  permanence, 
and  extension  for  the  system  of  slavery.  We  do 
not  use  the  qualifying  epithet  "  African,"  because 
the  franker  propagandists  of  Southern  principles 
affirmed  the  divine  institution  of  slavery  pure  and 
simple,  without  regard  to  color  or  the  curse  of 
Canaan.  This  being  the  single  motive  of  the  Re 
bellion,  what  was  its  real  object?  Primarily,  to 
possess  itself  of  the  government  by  a  sudden  coup 
d'etat ;  or  that  failing,  then,  secondarily,  by  a  peace 
ful  secession,  which  should  paralyze  the  commerce 
and  manufactures  of  the  Free  States,  to  bring  them 
to  terms  of  submission.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  opinion  of  some  of  the  more  far-sighted,  it  is 
clear  that  a  vast  majority  of  the  Southern  people, 
including  their  public  men,  believed  that  their  re 
volution  would  be  peaceful.  Their  inducements  to 
moving  precisely  when  they  did  were  several.  At 
home  the  treasury  was  empty ;  faithless  ministers 
had  supplied  the  Southern  arsenals  with  arms,  and 
so  disposed  the  army  and  navy  as  to  render  them 
useless  for  any  sudden  need ;  but  above  all,  they 
could  reckon  on  several  months  of  an  administra 
tion  which,  if  not  friendly,  was  so  feeble  as  to  be 
more  dangerous  to  the  country  than  to  its  betrayers, 
and  there  was  a  great  party  at  the  North  hitherto 
their  subservient  allies,  and  now  sharing  with  them 
in  the  bitterness  of  a  common  political  defeat.1 

1  Mr.  A.  H.  Stephens,  Vice-President  of  the  late  Confederacy, 
attributed  the  Secession  movement  to  disappointed  ambition. 


216  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Abroad  there  was  peace,  with  the  prospect  of  its 
continuance ;  the  two  great  maritime  powers  were 
also  the  great  consumers  of  cotton,  were  both  deadly 
enemies,  like  themselves,  to  the  democratic  princi 
ple,  and,  if  not  actively  interfering,  would  at  least 
throw  all  the  moral  weight  of  their  sympathy  and 
encouragement  on  the  Southern  side.     They  were 
not  altogether  mistaken  in  their  reckoning.     The 
imbecility  of  Mr.   Buchanan  bedded  the  ship  of 
state  in  an  ooze  of  helpless  inaction,  where  none  of 
her  guns  could  be  brought  to  bear,  and  whence  no 
thing  but  the  tide  of  indignation  which  followed 
the  attack  on  Sumter  could  have  set  her  afloat  again, 
while  prominent  men  and  journals  of  the  Demo 
cratic  party  hastened  to  assure  the  Rebels,  not  only 
of  approval,  but  of  active  physical  assistance.    Eng 
land,  with  indecent  eagerness,  proclaimed   a  neu 
trality  which  secured  belligerent  rights  to  a  conspi 
racy  that  was  never  to  become  a  nation,  and  thus 
enabled  members  of  Parliament  to  fit  out  privateers 
to  prey  with  impunity  on  the  commerce  of  a  friendly 
power.     The  wily  Napoleon  followed,  after  an  in 
terval  long  enough  to  throw  all  responsibility  for 
the  measure,  and  to  direct  all  the  natural  irritation 
it  excited  in  this  country,  upon  his  neighbor  over 
the  way.    England  is  now  endeavoring  to  evade  the 
consequences   of   her  hasty  proclamation  and  her 
jaunty  indifference  to  the  enforcement  of  it  upon 
her  own  subjects.    The  principle  of  international  law 
involved  is  a  most  important  one ;  but  it  was  not 
so  much  the  act  itself,  or  the  pecuniary  damage 
resulting  from  it,  as  the  animus  that  so  plainly 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR   KILL  IT?     217 

prompted  it,  which  Americans  find  it  hard  to  for 
give. 

It  would  be  unwise  in  us  to  forget  that  inde 
pendence  was  a  merely  secondary  and  incidental 
consideration  with  the  Southern  conspirators  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Eebellion,  however  they  may  have 
thought  it  wise  to  put  it  in  the  front,  both  for  the 
sake  of  their  foreign  abettors  who  were  squeam 
ish  about  seeming,  though  quite  indifferent  about 
being,  false  to  their  own  professions  and  the  higher 
interests  of  their  country,  and  also  for  the  sake  of 
its  traditionary  influence  among  the  Southern  peo 
ple.  Some,  it  is  true,  were  bold  enough  or  logical 
enough  to  advocate  barbarism  as  a  good  in  itself ; 
and  in  estimating  the  influences  which  have  ren 
dered  some  minds,  if  not  friendly  to  the  Rebellion, 
at  least  indifferent  to  the  success  of  the  Union,  we 
should  not  forget  that  reaction  against  the  softening 
and  humanizing  effect  of  modern  civilization,  led 
by  such  men  as  Carlyle,  and  joined  in  by  a  multi 
tude  whose  intellectual  and  moral  fibre  is  too  much 
unstrung  to  be  excited  by  anything  less  pungent 
than  paradox.  Protestants  against  the  religion 
which  sacrifices  to  the  polished  idol  of  Decorum 
and  translates  Jehovah  by  Comme-il-faut,  they  find 
even  the  divine  manhood  of  Christ  too  tame  for 
them,  and  transfer  their  allegiance  to  the  shaggy 
Thor  with  his  mallet  of  brute  force.  This  is  hardly 
to  be  wondered  at  when  we  hear  England  called 
prosperous  for  the  strange  reason  that  she  no  longer 
dares  to  act  from  a  noble  impulse,  and  when,  at 
whatever  page  of  her  recent  history  one  opens,  he 


218  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

finds  her  statesmanship  to  consist  of  one  Noble 
Lord  or  Honorable  Member  asking  a  question,  and 
another  Noble  Lord  or  Honorable  Member  endea 
voring  to  dodge  it,  amid  cries  of  Hear!  Hear! 
enthusiastic  in  proportion  to  the  fruitlessness  of 
listening.  After  all,  we  are  inclined  to  think  there 
is  more  real  prosperity,  more  that  posterity  will 
find  to  have  a  deep  meaning  and  reality,  in  a  de- 
•mocracy  spending  itself  for  a  principle,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  remonstrances,  protests,  and  sneers  of  a 
world  busy  in  the  eternal  seesaw  of  the  balance  of 
Europe,  persisting  in  a  belief  that  life  and  property 
are  mere  counters,  of  no  value  except  as  represen 
tatives  of  a  higher  idea.  May  it  be  long  ere  gov 
ernment  become  in  the  New  World,  as  in  the  Old, 
an  armed  police  and  fire-department,  to  protect 
property  as  it  grows  more  worthless  by  being  sel 
fishly  clutched  in  fewer  hands,  and  keep  God's  fire 
of  manhood  from  reaching  that  gunpowder  of  the 
dangerous  classes  which  underlies  all  institutions 
based  on  the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors. 

As  we  look  back  to  the  beginnings  of  the  Rebel 
lion,  we  are  struck  with  the  thoughtlessness  with 
which  both  parties  entered  upon  a  war  of  whose 
vast  proportions  and  results  neither  was  even  dimly 
conscious.  But  a  manifest  difference  is  to  be  re 
marked.  In  the  South  this  thoughtlessness  was  the 
result  of  an  ignorant  self-confidence,  in  the  North 
of  inexperience  and  good  humor.  It  was  long  be 
fore  either  side  could  believe  that  the  other  was  in 
earnest :  the  one  in  attacking  a  government  which 
they  knew  only  by  their  lion's  share  in  its  offices 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT?     219 

and  influence,  the  other  in  resisting  the  unprovoked 
assault  of  a  race  born  in  the  saddle,  incapable  of 
subjugation,  and  unable  to  die  comfortably  except 
in  the  last  ditch  of  jubilant  oratory.  "When  at  last 
each  was  convinced  of  the  other's  sincerity,  the 
moods  of  both  might  have  been  predicted  by  any 
observer  of  human  nature.  The  side  which  felt 
that  it  was  not  only  in  the  wrong,  but  that  it  had 
made  a  blunder,  lost  all  control  of  its  temper,  all 
regard  for  truth  and  honor.  It  betook  itself  forth 
with  to  lies,  bluster,  and  cowardly  abuse  of  its  an 
tagonist.  But  beneath  every  other  expression  of 
Southern  sentiment,  and  seeming  to  be  the  base 
of  it,  was  a  ferocity  not  to  be  accounted  for  by 
thwarted  calculations  or  by  any  resentment  at  in 
juries  received,  but  only  by  the  influence  of  slavery 
on  the  character  and  manners.  "  Scratch  a  Rus 
sian,"  said  Napoleon,  "  and  you  come  to  the  Tartar 
beneath."  Scratch  a  slaveholder,  and  beneath  the 
varnish  of  conventionalism  you  come  upon  some 
thing  akin  to  the  man-hunter  of  Dahomey.  Nay, 
the  selfishness  engendered  by  any  system  which 
rests  on  the  right  of  the  strongest  is  more  irritable 
and  resentful  in  the  civilized  than  the  savage  man, 
as  it  is  enhanced  by  a  consciousness  of  guilt.  In 
the  first  flush  of  over-confidence,  when  the  Rebels 
reckoned  on  taking  Washington,  the  air  was  to  be 
darkened  with  the  gibbeted  carcasses  of  dogs  and 
caitiffs.  Pollard,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  South 
ern  History  of  the  War,  prints  without  comment 
the  letter  of  a  ruffian  who  helped  butcher  our 
wounded  in  Sudley  Church  after  the  first  battle  of 


220  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Manassas,  in  which  he  says  that  he  had  resolved  to 
give  no  quarter.  In  Missouri  the  Rebels  took  scalps 
as  trophies,  and  that  they  made  personal  ornaments 
of  the  bones  of  our  unburied  dead,  and  that  women 
wore  them,  though  seeming  incredible,  has  been 
proved  beyond  question.  Later  in  the  war,  they 
literally  starved  our  prisoners  in  a  country  where 
Sherman's  army  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  found 
supplies  so  abundant  that  they  could  dispense  with 
their  provision  train.  Yet  these  were  the  "  gen 
try  "  of  the  country,  in  whose  struggle  to  escape 
from  the  contamination  of  mob-government  the 
better  classes  of  England  so  keenly  sympathized. 
Our  experience  is  thrown  away  unless  it  teach  us 
that  every  form  of  conventionalized  injustice  is  in 
stinctively  in  league  with  every  other,  the  world 
over,  and  that  all  institutions  safe  only  in  law,  but 
forever  in  danger  from  reason  and  conscience,  be 
get  first  selfishness,  next  fear,  and  then  cruelty, 
by  an  incurable  degeneration.  Having  been  thus 
taught  that  a  rebellion  against  justice  and  mercy 
has  certain  natural  confederates,  we  must  be  blind 
indeed  not  to  see  whose  alliance  at  the  South  is 
to  give  meaning  and  permanence  to  our  victory 
over  it. 

In  the  North,  on  the  other  hand,  nothing  is  more 
striking  than  the  persistence  in  good  nature,  the 
tenacity  with  which  the  theories  of  the  erring 
brother  and  the  prodigal  son  were  clung  to,  despite 
all  evidence  of  facts  to  the  contrary.  There  was  a 
kind  of  boyishness  in  the  rumors  which  the  news 
papers  circulated  (not  seldom  with  intent  to  dis- 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT*     221 

pirit),  and  the  people  believed  on  the  authority  of 
reliable  gentlemen  from  Richmond,  or  Union  refu 
gees  whose  information  could  be  trusted.  At  one 
time  the  Rebels  had  mined  eleven  acres  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Bull  Run  ;  at  another,  there  were 
regiments  of  giants  on  their  way  from  Texas,  who, 
first  paralyzing  our  batteries  by  a  yell,  would  rush 
unscathed  upon  the  guns,  and  rip  up  the  unresist 
ing  artillerymen  with  bowie-knives  three  feet  long, 
made  for  that  precise  service,  and  the  only  weapon 
to  which  these  Berserkers  would  condescend ;  again, 
for  the  fiftieth  time,  France  and  England  had  de 
finitely  agreed  upon  a  forcible  intervention ;  finally, 
in  order  to  sap  the  growing  confidence  of  the  peo 
ple  in  President  Lincoln,  one  of  his  family  was 
accused  of  communicating  our  plans  to  the  Rebels, 
and  this  at  a  time  when  the  favorite  charge  against 
his  administration  was  the  having  no  plan  at  all. 
The  public  mind,  as  the  public  folly  is  generally 
called,  was  kept  in  a  fidget  by  these  marvels  and 
others  like  them.  But  the  point  to  which  we  would 
especially  call  attention  is  this :  that  while  the 
war  slowly  educated  the  North,  it  has  had  compara 
tively  little  effect  in  shaking  the  old  nonsense  out 
of  the  South.  Nothing  is  more  striking,  as  we 
trace  Northern  opinion  through  those  four  years 
that  seemed  so  long  and  seem  so  short,  than  to  see 
how  the  minds  of  men  were  sobered,  braced,  and 
matured  as  the  greatness  of  the  principles  at  stake 
became  more  and  more  manifest ;  how  their  pur 
pose,  instead  of  relaxing,  was  strained  tighter  by 
disappointment,  and  by  the  growing  sense  of  a 


222  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

guidance  wiser  than  their  own.  Nor  should  we 
forget  how  slow  the  great  body  of  the  people  were 
in  being  persuaded  of  the  expediency  of  directly 
attacking  slavery,  and  after  that  of  enlisting  colored 
troops  ;  of  the  fact,  in  short,  that  it  must  always  be 
legal  to  preserve  the  source  of  the  law's  authority, 
and  constitutional  to  save  the  country.  The  pru 
dence  of  those  measures  is  now  acknowledged  by 
all,  and  justified  by  the  result ;  but  we  must  not 
be  blind  to  the  deeper  moral,  that  justice  is  always 
and  only  politic,  that  it  needs  no  precedent,  and 
that  we  were  prosperous  in  proportion  as  we  were 
willing  to  be  true  to  our  nobler  judgment.  In  one 
respect  only  the  popular  understanding  seems  al 
ways  to  have  been,  and  still  to  remain,  confused. 
Our  notion  of  treason  is  a  purely  traditional  one, 
derived  from  countries  where  the  question  at  issue 
has  not  been  the  life  of  the  nation,  but  the  con 
flicting  titles  of  this  or  that  family  to  govern  it. 
Many  people  appear  to  consider  civil  war  as  merely 
a  more  earnest  kind  of  political  contest,  which 
leaves  the  relative  position  of  the  parties  as  they 
would  be  after  a  Presidential  election.  But  no 
treason  was  ever  so  wicked  as  that  of  Davis  and  his 
fellow-conspirators,  for  it  had  no  apology  of  injury 
or  even  of  disputed  right,  and  it  was  aimed  against 
the  fairest  hope  and  promise  of  the  world.  They 
did  not  attempt  to  put  one  king  in  place  of  another, 
but  to  dethrone  human  nature  and  discrown  the 
very  manhood  of  the  race.  And  in  what  respect 
does  a  civil  war  differ  from  any  other  in  the  dis 
cretion  which  it  leaves  to  the  victor  of  exacting 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,    OR  KILL  IT?     223 

indemnity  for  the  past  and  security  for  the  future  ? 
A  contest  begun  for  such  ends  and  maintained  by 
such  expedients  as  this  has  been,  is  not  to  be  con 
cluded  by  merely  crying  quits  and  shaking  hands. 
The  slaveholding  States  chose  to  make  themselves 
a  foreign  people  to  us,  and  they  must  take  the  con 
sequences.  We  surely  cannot  be  expected  to  take 
them  back  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  as  if  victory 
rendered  us  helpless  to  promote  good  or  prevent 
evil,  and  took  from  us  all  title  to  insist  on  the  ad 
mission  of  the  very  principle  for  which  we  have 
sacrificed  so  much.  The  war  has  established  the 
unity  of  the  government,  but  no  peace  will  be  any 
thing  more  than  a  pretence  unless  it  rest  upon  the 
unity  of  the  nation,  and  that  can  only  be  secured 
by  making  everywhere  supreme  the  national  idea 
that  freedom  is  a  right  inherent  in  man  himself, 
and  not  a  creature  of  the  law,  to  be  granted  to 
one  class  of  men  or  withheld  from  it  at  the  option 
of  another. 

What  have  we  conquered  ?  The  Southern 
States?  The  Southern  people?  A  cessation  of 
present  war  ?  Surely  not  these  or  any  one  of 
these  merely.  The  fruit  of  our  victory,  as  it  was 
always  the  object  of  our  warfare,  is  the  everlasting 
validity  of  the  theory  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  in  these  United  States,  and  the  obligation 
before  God  and  man  to  make  it  the  rule  of  our 
practice.  It  was  in  that  only  that  we  were  stronger 
than  our  enemies,  stronger  than  the  public  opinion 
of  the  world ;  and  it  is  from  that  alone  that  we 
derive  our  right  of  the  strongest,  for  it  is  wisdom, 


224  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

justice,  and  the  manifest  will  of  Him  who  made  of 
one  blood  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  It  were  a 
childish  view  of  the  matter  to  think  this  is  a  mere 
trial  of  strength  or  struggle  for  supremacy  between 
the  North  and  South.  The  war  sprang  from  the 
inherent  antipathy  between  two  forms  of  political 
organization  radically  hostile  to  each  other.  Is  the 
war  over,  will  it  ever  be  over,  if  we  allow  the  in 
compatibility  to  remain,  childishly  satisfied  with  a 
mere  change  of  shape  ?  This  has  been  the  grapple 
of  two  brothers  that  already  struggled  with  each 
other  even  in  the  womb.  One  of  them  has  fallen 
under  the  other ;  but  let  simple,  good-natured  Esau 
beware  how  he  slacken  his  grip  till  he  has  got  back 
his  inheritance,  for  Jacob  is  cunninger  with  the 
tongue  than  he. 

We  have  said  that  the  war  has  given  the  North 
a  higher  conception  of  its  manhood  and  its  duties, 
and  of  the  vital  force  of  ideas.  But  do  we  find 
any  parallel  change  in  the  South  ?  We  confess  we 
look  for  it  in  vain.  There  is  the  same  arrogance, 
the  same  materialistic  mode*  of  thought,  which 
reckons  the  strength  and  value  of  a  country  by  the 
amount  of  its  crops  rather  than  by  the  depth  of 
political  principle  which  inspires  its  people,  the 
same  boyish  conceit  on  which  even  defeat  wastes 
its  lesson.  Here  is  a  clear  case  for  the  interference 
of  authority.  The  people  have  done  their  part  by 
settling  the  fact  that  we  have  a  government ;  and 
it  is  for  the  government  now  to  do  its  duty  toward 
the  people  by  seeing  to  it  that  their  blood  and 
treasure  shall  not  have  been  squandered  in  a  mean- 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT*      225 

ingless  conflict.  We  must  not  let  ourselves  be 
misled  by  the  terms  North  and  South,  as  if  those 
names  implied  any  essential  diversity  of  interest, 
or  the  claim  to  any  separate  share  in  the  future 
destiny  of  the  country.  Let  us  concede  every  right 
to  the  several  States  except  that  of  mischief,  and 
never  again  be  deceived  by  the  fallacy  that  a  moral 
wrong  can  be  local  in  its  evil  influence,  or  that  a 
principle  alien  to  the  instincts  of  the  nation  can  be , 
consistent  either  with  its  prosperity  or  its  peace. 
We  must  not  be  confused  into  a  belief  that  it  is 
with  States  that  we  are  dealing  in  this  matter. 
The  very  problem  is  how  to  reconstitute  safely  a 
certain  territory  or  population  as  States.  It  is  not 
we  that  take  anything  from  them.  The  war  has 
left  them  nothing  that  they  can  fairly  call  their 
own  politically  but  helplessness  and  confusion. 
We  propose  only  to  admit  them  for  the  first  time 
into  a  real  union  with  us,  and  to  give  them  an 
equal  share  in  privileges,  our  belief  in  whose  value 
we  have  proved  by  our  sacrifices  in  asserting  them. 
There  is  always  a  time  for  doing  what  is  fit  to  be 
done ;  and  if  it  be  done  wisely,  temperately,  and 
firmly,  it  need  appeal  for  its  legality  to  no  higher 
test  than  success.  It  is  the  nation,  and  not  a  sec 
tion,  which  is  victorious,  and  it  is  only  on  princi 
ples  of  purely  national  advantage  that  any  perma 
nent  settlement  can  be  based. 

The  South  will  come  back  to  the  Union  intent 
on  saving  whatever  fragments  it  can  from  the 
wreck  of  the  evil  element  in  its  social  structure, 
which  it  clings  to  with  that  servile  constancy  which 


226  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

men  often  show  for  the  vice  that  is  making  them 
its  victims.  If  they  must  lose  slavery,  they  will 
make  a  shift  to  be  comfortable  on  the  best  substi 
tute  they  can  find  in  a  system  of  caste.  The  ques 
tion  for  a  wise  government  in  such  a  case  seems  to 
us  not  to  be,  Have  we  the  right  to  interfere  ?  but 
much  rather,  Have  we  the  right  to  let  them  alone  ? 
If  we  are  entitled,  as  conquerors,  —  and  it  is  only 
as  such  that  we  are  so  entitled,  — to  stipulate  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  what  is  there  to  prevent 
our  exacting  further  conditions  no  less  essential  to 
our  safety  and  the  prosperity  of  the  South  ?  The 
national  unity  we  have  paid  so  dearly  for  will  turn 
out  a  pinchbeck  counterfeit,  without  that  sympathy 
of  interests  and  ideas,  that  unity  of  the  people, 
which  can  spring  only  from  homogeneousness  of 
institutions.  The  successive  advances  toward  jus 
tice  which  we  made  during  the  war,  and  which 
looked  so  difficult  and  doubtful  before  they  were 
made,  the  proclamation  of  freedom  and  the  arming 
of  the  blacks,  seem  now  to  have  been  measures  of 
the  simplest  expediency,  as  the  highest  always 
turns  out  to  be  the  simplest  when  we  have  the  wit 
to  try  it.  The  heavens  were  to  have  come  crash 
ing  down  after  both  those  measures  ;  yet  the  pil 
lars  of  the  universe  not  only  stood  firm  on  their 
divinely  laid  foundations,  but  held  us  up  also,  and, 
to  the  amazement  of  many,  God  did  not  frown  on 
an  experiment  of  righteousness.  People  are  not 
yet  agreed  whether  these  things  were  constitutional  ; 
we  believe,  indeed,  that  the  weight  of  legal  opinion 
is  against  them,  but  nevertheless  events  are  toler- 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT*     227 

ably  unanimous  that  without  them  we  should  have 
had  a  fine  Constitution  left  on  our  hands  with  no 
body  politic  for  it  to  animate. 

Laws  of  the  wisest  human  device  are,  after  all, 
but  the  sheath  of  the  sword  of  Power,  which  must 
not  be  allowed  to  rust  in  them  till  it  cannot  be 
drawn  swiftly  in  time  of  need.  President  Lincoln 
had  many  scruples  to  overcome  ere  he  could  over 
step  the  limits  of  precedent  into  the  divine  air  of 
1  moral  greatness.  Like  most  men,  he  was  reluctant 
to  be  the  bearer  of  that  message  of  God  with  which 
his  name  will  be  linked  in  the  grateful  memory  of 
mankind.  If  he  won  an  immortality  of  fame  by 
consenting  to  ally  himself  with  the  eternal  justice, 
and  to  reinforce  his  armies  by  the  inspiration  of 
their  own  nobler  instincts,  an  equal  choice  of  re 
nown  is  offered  to  his  successor  in  applying  the 
same  loyalty  to  conscience  in  the  establishment  of 
peace.  We  could  not  live  together  half  slave  and 
half  free ;  shall  we  succeed  better  in  trying  a 
second  left-handed  marriage  between  democracy 
and  another  form  of  aristocracy,  less  gross,  but  not 
less  uncongenial?  They  who  before  misled  the 
country  into  a  policy  false  and  deadly  to  the  very 
truth  which  was  its  life  and  strength,  by  the  fear 
of  abolitionism,  are  making  ready  to  misrule  it 
again  by  the  meaner  prejudice  of  color.  We  can 
have  no  permanent  peace  with  the  South  but  by 
Americanizing  it,  by  compelling  it,  if  need  be,  to 
accept  the  idea,  and  with  it  the  safety  of  demo 
cracy.  At  present  we  seem  on  the  brink  of  con 
tracting  to  protect  from  insurrection  States  in 


228  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

which  a  majority  of  the  population,  many  of  them 
now  trained  to  arms,  and  all  of  them  conscious  of 
a  claim  upon  us  to  make  their  freedom  strong 
enough  to  protect  them,  are  to  be  left  at  the  mercy 
of  laws  which  they  have  had  no  share  in  enacting. 
The  gravity  of  this  consideration  alone  should 
make  us  pause.  The  more  thought  we  bestow 
upon  the  matter,  the  more  thoroughly  are  we  per 
suaded  that  the  only  way  to  get  rid  of  the  negro  is 
to  do  him  justice.  Democracy  is  safe  because  it  is 
just,  and  safe  only  when  it  is  just  to  all.  Here  is 
no  question  of  white  or  black,  but  simply  of  man. 
We  have  hitherto  been  strong  in  proportion  as  we 
dared  be  true  to  the  sublime  thought  of  our  own 
Declaration  of  Independence,  which  for  the  first 
time  proposed  to  embody  Christianity  in  human 
laws,  and  announced  the  discovery  that  the  secu 
rity  of  the  state  is  based  on  the  moral  instincts  and 
the  manhood  of  its  members.  In  the  very  mid 
night  of  the  war,  when  we  were  compassed  round 
with  despondency  and  the  fear  of  man,  that  peer 
less  utterance  of  human  policy  rang  like  a  trumpet 
announcing  heavenly  succor,  and  lifted  us  out  of  the 
darkness  of  our  doubts  into  that  courage  which  comes 
of  the  fear  of  God.  Now,  if  ever,  may  a  statesman 
depend  upon  the  people  sustaining  him  in  doing 
what  is  simply  right,  for  they  have  found  out  the 
infinite  worth  of  freedom,  and  how  much  they  love 
it,  by  being  called  on  to  defend  it.  We  have  seen 
how  our  contest  has  been  watched  by  a  breathless 
world ;  how  every  humane  and  generous  heart, 
every  intellect  bold  enough  to  believe  that  men 


SCOTCH  THE  SNAKE,   OR  KILL  IT*     229 

may  be  safely  trusted  with  government  as  well  as 
with  any  other  of  their  concerns,  has  wished  us 
God-speed.  And  we  have  felt  as  never  before  the 
meaning  of  those  awful  words, "  Hell  beneath  is 
stirred  for  thee,"  as  we  saw  all  that  was  mean  and 
timid  and  selfish  and  wicked,  by  a  horrible  impul 
sion  of  nature,  gathering  to  the  help  of  our  ene 
mies.  Why  should  we  shrink  from  embodying 
our  own  idea  as  if  it  would  turn  out  a  Franken 
stein?  Why  should  we  let  the  vanquished  dictate 
terms  of  peace?  A  choice  is  offered  that  may 
never  come  again,  unless  after  another  war.  We 
should  sin  against  our  own  light,  if  we  allowed 
mongrel  republics  to  grow  up  again  at  the  South, 
and  deliberately  organized  anarchy,  as  if  it  were 
better  than  war.  Let  the  law  be  made  equal  for 
all  men.  If  the  power  does  not  exist  in  the  Con 
stitution,  find  it  somewhere  else,  or  confess  that 
democracy,  strongest  of  all  governments  for  war, 
is  the  weakest  of  all  in  the  statesmanship  that  shall 
save  us  from  it.  There  is  no  doubt  what  the 
wishes  of  the  administration  are.  Let  them  act 
up  to  their  own  convictions  and  the  emergency  of 
the  hour,  sure  of  the  support  of  the  people  ;  for  it 
is  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  our  form  of  polity 
that  the  public  reason,  which  gives  our  Constitu 
tion  all  its  force,  is  always  a  reserve  of  power  to 
the  magistrate,  open  to  the  appeal  of  justice,  and 
ready  to  ratify  the  decisions  of  conscience.  There 
is  no  need  of  hurry  in  readmitting  the  States  that 
locked  themselves  out  of  the  old  homestead.  It  is 
not  enough  to  conquer  unless  we  convert  them,  and 


230  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

time,  the  best  means  of  quiet  persuasion,  is  in  our 
own  Lands.  Shall  we  hasten  to  cover  with  the 
thin  ashes  of  another  compromise  that  smoulder 
ing  war  which  we  called  peace  for  seventy  years, 
only  to  have  it  flame  up  again  when  the  wind  of 
Southern  doctrine  has  set  long  enough  in  the  old 
quarter  ?  It  is  not  the  absence  of  war,  but  of  its 
causes,  that  is  in  our  grasp.  That  is  what  we 
fought  for,  and  there  must  be  a  right  somewhere 
to  enforce  what  all  see  to  be  essential.  To  quibble 
away  such  an  opportunity  would  be  as  cowardly  as 
unwise. 


THE  PKESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP. 

1866. 

MR.  JOHNSON  is  the  first  of  our  Presidents  who 
has  descended  to  the  stump,  and  spoken  to  the 
people  as  if  they  were  a  mob.  We  do  not  care  to 
waste  words  in  criticising  the  taste  of  this  proceed 
ing,  but  deem  it  our  duty  to  comment  on  some  of 
its  graver  aspects.  We  shall  leave  entirely  aside 
whatever  was  personal  in  the  extraordinary  dia 
tribe  of  the  22d  of  February,  merely  remarking 
that  we  believe  the  majority  of  Americans  have 
too  much  good  sense  to  be  flattered  by  an  allusion 
to  the  humbleness  of  their  chief  magistrate's  ori 
gin  ;  the  matter  of  interest  for  them  being  rather 
to  ascertain  what  he  has  arrived  at  than  where  he 
started  from,  —  we  do  not  mean  in  station,  but  in 
character,  intelligence,  and  fitness  for  the  place  he 
occupies.  We  have  reason  to  suspect,  indeed,  that 
pride  of  origin,  whether  high  or  low,  springs  from 
the  same  principle  in  human  nature,  and  that  one 
is  but  the  positive,  the  other  the  negative,  pole  of 
a  single  weakness.  The  people  do  not  take  it  as  a 
compliment  to  be  told  that  they  have  chosen  a  ple 
beian  to  the  highest  office,  for  they  are  not  fond  of 
a  plebeian  tone  of  mind  or  manners.  What  they 
do  like,  we  believe,  is  to  be  represented  by  their 


232  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

foremost  man,  their  highest  type  of  courage,  sense, 
and  patriotism,  no  matter  what  his  origin.  For, 
after  all,  no  one  in  this  country  incurs  any  natal 
disadvantage  unless  he  be  born 'to  an  ease  which 
robs  him  of 'the  necessity  of  exerting,  and  so  of  in 
creasing  and  maturing,  his  natural  powers.  It  is 
of  very  little  consequence  to  know  what  our  Presi 
dent  was  ;  of  the  very  highest,  to  ascertain  what  he 
is,  and  to  make  the  best  of  him.  We  may  say,  in 
passing,  that  the  bearing  of  Congress,  under  the 
temptations  of  the  last  few  weeks,  has  been  most 
encouraging,  though  we  must  except  from  our  com 
mendation  the  recent  speech  of  Mr.  Stevens  of 
Pennsylvania.  There  is  a  pride  of  patriotism  that 
should  make  all  personal  pique  seem  trifling ;  and 
Mr.  Stevens  ought  to  have  remembered  that  it 
was  not  so  much  the  nakedness  of  an  antagonist 
that  he  was  uncovering  as  that  of  his  country. 

The  dangers  of  popular  oratory  are  always  great, 
and  unhappily  ours  is  nearly  all  of  this  kind. 
Even  a  speaker  in  Congress  addresses  his  real 
hearers  through  the  reporters  and  the  post-office. 
The  merits  of  the  question  at  issue  concern  him 
less  than  what  he  shall  say  about  it  so  as  not  to 
ruin  his  own  chance  of  reelection,  or  that  of  some 
fourth  cousin  to  a  tidewaitership.  Few  men  have 
any  great  amount  of  gathered  wisdom,  still  fewer 
of  extemporary,  while  there  are  unhappily  many 
who  have  a  large  stock  of  accumulated  phrases, 
and  hold  their  parts  of  speech  subject  to  immediate 
draft.  In  a  country  where  the  party  newspapers 
and  speakers  have  done  their  best  to  make  us  be- 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     233 

lieve  that  consistency  is  of  so  much  more  impor 
tance  than  statesmanship,  and  where  every  public 
man  is  more  or  less  in  the  habit  of  considering 
what  he  calls  his  "  record  "  as  the  one  thing  to  be 
saved  in  the  general  deluge,  a  hasty  speech,  if  the 
speaker  be  in  a  position  to  make  his  words  things, 
may,  by  this  binding  force  which  is  superstitiously 
attributed  to  the  word  once  uttered,  prove  to  be  of 
public  detriment.  It  would  be  well  for  us  if  we 
could  shake  off  this  baleful  system  of  requiring 
that  a  man  who  has  once  made  a  fool  of  himself 
shall  always  thereafter  persevere  in  being  one. 
Unhappily  it  is  something  more  easy  of  accomplish 
ment  than  the  final  perseverance  of  the  saints. 
Let  us  learn  to  be  more  careful  in  distinguishing 
between  betrayal  of  principle,  and  breaking  loose 
from  a  stupid  consistency  that  compels  its  victims 
to  break  their  heads  against  the  wall  instead  of 
going  a  few  steps  round  to  the  door.  To  eat  our 
own  words  would  seem  to  bear  some  analogy  to 
that  diet  of  east-wind  which  is  sometimes  attrib 
uted  to  the  wild  ass,  and  might  therefore  be  whole 
some  for  the  tame  variety  of  that  noble  and  neces 
sary  animal,  which,  like  the  poor,  we  are  sure  to 
have  always  with  us.  If  the  words  have  been 
foolish,  we  can  conceive  of  no  food  likely  to  be 
more  nutritious,  and  could  almost  wish  that  we 
might  have  public  establishments  at  the  common 
charge,  like  those  at  which  the  Spartans  ate  black 
broth,  where  we  might  all  sit  down  together  to  a 
meal  of  this  cheaply  beneficial  kind.  Among  other 
amendments  of  the  Constitution,  since  every  Sena- 


234  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

tor  seems  to  carry  half  a  dozen  in  his  pocket  now 
adays,  a  sort  of  legislative  six-shooter,  might  we 
not  have  one  to  the  effect  that  a  public  character 
might  change  his  mind  as  circumstances  changed 
theirs,  say  once  in  five  years,  without  forfeiting  the 
confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens  ? 

We  trust  that  Mr.  Johnson  may  not  be  so  often 
reminded  of  his  late  harangue  as  to  be  provoked 
into  maintaining  it  as  part  of  his  settled  policy, 
and  that  every  opportunity  will  be  given  him  for 
forgetting  it,  as  we  are  sure  his  better  sense  will 
make  him  wish  to  do.  For  the  more  we  reflect 
upon  it,  the  more  it  seems  to  us  to  contain,  either 
directty  or  by  implication,  principles  of  very  dan 
gerous  consequence  to  the  well-being  of  the  Kepub- 
lic.  We  are  by  no  means  disposed  to  forget  Mr. 
Johnson's  loyalty  when  it  was  hard  to  be  loyal,  nor 
the  many  evidences  he  has  given  of  a  sincere  de 
sire  to  accomplish  what  seemed  to  him  best  for  the 
future  of  the  whole  country  ;  but,  at  the  same  time, 
we  cannot  help  thinking  that  some  of  his  over- 
frank  confidences  of  late  have  shown  alarming  mis 
conceptions,  both  of  the  position  he  holds  either'  in 
the  public  sentiment  or  by  virtue  of  his  office,  and 
of  the  duty  thereby  devolved  upon  him.  We  do 
not  mean  to  indulge  ourselves  in  any  nonsensical 
rhetoric  about  usurpations  like  those  which  cost 
an  English  king  his  head,  for  we  consider  the  mat 
ter  in  too  serious  a  light,  and  no  crowded  galleries 
invite  us  to  thrill  them  with  Bulwerian  common 
place  ;  but  we  have  a  conviction  that  the  exceptional 
circumstances  of  the  last  five  years,  which  gave  a 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     235 

necessary  predominance  to  the  executive  part  of 
our  government,  have  left  behind  them  a  false  im 
pression  of  the  prerogative  of  a  President  in  ordi 
nary  times.  The  balance-wheel  of  our  system  has 
insensibly  come  to  think  itself  the  motive  power, 
whereas  that,  to  be  properly  effective,  should  al 
ways  be  generated  by  the  deliberate  public  opinion 
of  the  country.  Already  the  Democratic  party, 
anxious  to  profit  by  any  chance  at  resuscitation,  — 
for  it  is  extremely  inconvenient  to  be  dead  so  long, 
—  is  more  than  hinting  that  the  right  of  veto  was 
given  to  the  President  that  he  might  bother  and 
baffle  a  refractory  Congress  into  concession,  not  to 
his  reasons,  but  to  his  whim.  There  seemed  to  be 
a  plan  at  one  time  of  forming  a  President's  party, 
with  no  principle  but  that  of  general  opposition  to 
the  policy  of  that  great  majority  which  carried  him 
into  power.  Such  a  scheme  might  have  had  some 
chance  of  success  in  the  good  old  times  when  it 
seemed  to  the  people  as  if  there  was  nothing  more 
important  at  stake  than  who  should  be  in  and  who 
out ;  but  it  would  be  sure  of  failure  now  that  the 
public  mind  is  intelligently  made  up  as  to  the  vital 
meaning  of  whatever  policy  we  adopt,  and  the 
necessity  of  establishing  our  institutions,  once  for 
all,  on  a  basis  as  permanent  as  human  prudence 
can  make  it. 

Congress  is  sometimes  complained  of  for  wasting 
time  in  discussion,  and  for  not  having,  after  a  four 
months'  session,  arrived  at  any  definite  plan  of 
settlement.  There  has  been,  perhaps,  a  little  eager 
ness  on  the  part  of  honorable  members  to  associate 


236  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

their  names  with,  the  particular  nostrum  that  is  to 
build  up  our  national  system  again.  In  a  country 
where,  unhappily,  any  man  may  be  President,  it  is 
natural  that  a  means  of  advertising  so  efficacious 
as  this  should  not  be  neglected.  But  really,  we  do 
not  see  how  Congress  can  be  blamed  for  not  being 
ready  with  a  plan  definite  and  precise  upon  every 
point  of  possible  application,  when  it  is  not  yet  in 
possession  of  the  facts  according  to  whose  varying 
complexion  the  plan  must  be  good  or  bad.  The 
question  with  us  is  much  more  whether  another 
branch  of  the  government,  —  to  which,  from  its 
position  and  its  opportunity  for  a  wider  view,  the 
country  naturally  looks  for  initiative  suggestion, 
and  in  which  a  few  months  ago  even  decisive  action 
would  have  been  pardoned,  —  whether  this  did  not 
let  the  lucky  moment  go  by  without  using  it.  That 
moment  was  immediately  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  mur 
der,  when  the  victorious  nation  was  ready  to  apply, 
and  the  conquered  faction  would  have  submitted 
without  a  murmur  to  that  bold  and  comprehen 
sive  policy  which  is  the  only  wise  as  it  is  the  only 
safe  one  for  great  occasions.  To  let  that  moment 
slip  was  to  descend  irrecoverably  from  the  van 
tage  ground  where  statesmanship  is  an  exact  sci 
ence  to  the  experimental  level  of  tentative  politics. 
We  cannot  often  venture  to  set  our  own  house  on 
fire  with  civil  war,  in  order  to  heat  our  iron  up 
to  that  point  of  easy  forging  at  which  it  glowed, 
longing  for  the  hammer  of  the  master-smith,  less 
than  a  year  ago.  That  Occasion  is  swift  we 
learned  long  ago  from  the  adage;  but  this  vola- 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     237 

tility  is  meant  only  of  moments  where  -force  of 
personal  character  is  decisive,  where  the  fame  or 
fortune  of  a  single  man  is  at  stake.  The  life  of 
nations  can  afford  to  take  less  strict  account  of 
time,  and  in  their  affairs  there  may  always  be  a 
hope  that  the  slow  old  tortoise,  Prudence,  may  over 
take  again  the  opportunity  that  seemed  flown  by 
so  irrecoverably.  Our  people  have  shown  so  much 
of  this  hard -shelled  virtue  during  the  last  five 
years,  that  we  look  with  more  confidence  than  ap 
prehension  to  the  result  of  our  present  difficulties. 
Never  was  the  common-sense  of  a  nation  more  often 
and  directly  appealed  to,  never  was  it  readier  in 
coming  to  its  conclusion  and  making  it  operative 
in  public  affairs,  than  during  the  war  whose  wounds 
we  are  now  endeavoring  to  stanch.  It  is  the  duty 
of  patriotic  men  to  keep  this  great  popular  faculty 
always  in  view,  to  satisfy  its  natural  demand  for 
clearness  and  practicality  in  the  measures  proposed, 
and  not  to  distract  it  and  render  it  nugatory  by 
the  insubstantial  metaphysics  of  abstract  policy. 
From  the  splitting  of  heads  to  the  splitting  of 
hairs  would  seem  to  be  a  long  journey,  and  yet 
some  are  already  well  on  their  way  to  the  end  of 
it,  who  should  be  the  leaders  of  public  opinion  and 
not  the  skirmishing  harassers  of  its  march.  It 
would  be  well  if  some  of  our  public  men  would 
consider  that  Providence  has  saved  their  modesty 
the  trial  of  an  experiment  in  cosmogony,  and  that 
their  task  is  the  difficult,  no  doubt,  but  much  sim 
pler  and  less  ambitious  one,  of  bringing  back  the 
confused  material  which  lies  ready  to  their  hand, 


238  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

always  with  a  divinely  implanted  instinct  of  order 
in  it,  to  as  near  an  agreement  with  the  providential 
intention  as  their  best  wisdom  can  discern.  The 
aggregate  opinion  of  a  nation  moves  slowly.  Like 
those  old  migrations  of  entire  tribes,  it  is  encum 
bered  with  much  household  stuff;  a  thousand  un 
foreseen  things  may  divert  or  impede  it ;  a  hostile 
check  or  the  temptation  of  present  convenience 
may  lead  it  to  settle  far  short  of  its  original  aim  ; 
the  want  of  some  guiding  intellect  and  central  will 
may  disperse  it ;  but  experience  shows  one  constant 
element  of  its  progress,  which  those  who  aspire  to 
be  its  leaders  should  keep  in  mind,  namely,  that 
the  place  of  a  wise  general  should  be  oftener  in  the 
rear  or  the  centre  than  the  extreme  front.  The 
secret  of  permanent  leadership  is  to  know  how  to 
be  moderate.  The  rashness  of  conception  that 
makes  opportunity,  the  gallantry  that  heads  the 
advance,  may  win  admiration,  may  possibly  achieve 
a  desultory  and  indecisive  exploit ;  but  it  is  the 
slow  steadiness  of  temper,  bent  always  on  the  main 
design  and  the  general  movement,  that  gains  by 
degrees  a  confidence  as  unshakable  as  its  own,  the 
only  basis  for  permanent  power  over  the  minds  of 
men.  It  was  the  surest  proof  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
sagacity  and  the  deliberate  reach  of  his  under 
standing,  that  he  never  thought  time  wasted  while 
he  waited  for  the  wagon  that  brought  his  supplies. 
The  very  immovability  of  his  purpose,  fixed  always 
on  what  was  attainable,  laid  him  open  to  the  shal 
low  criticism  of  having  none,  —  for  a  shooting  star 
draws  more  eyes,  and  seems  for  the  moment  to  have 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     239 

a  more  definite  aim,  than  a  planet,  —  but  it  gained 
him  at  last  such  a  following  as  made  him  irresisti 
ble.  It  lays  a  much  lighter  tax  on  the  intellect, 
and  proves  its  resources  less,  to  suggest  a  number 
of  plans,  than  to  devise  and  carry  through  a  single 
one. 

Mr.  Johnson  has  an  undoubted  constitutional 
right  to  choose  any,  or  to  reject  all,  of  the  schemes 
of  settlement  proposed  by  Congress,  though  the 
wisdom  of  his  action  in  any  case  is  a  perfectly 
proper  subject  of  discussion  among  those  who  put 
him  where  he  is,  who  are  therefore  responsible  for 
his  power  of  good  or  evil,  and  to  whom  the  conse 
quences  of  his  decision  must  come  home  at  last. 
He  has  an  undoubted  personal  right  to  propose  any 
scheme  of  settlement  himself,  and  to  advocate  it 
with  whatever  energy  of  reason  or  argument  he 
possesses,  but  is  liable,  in  our  judgment,  to  very 
grave  reprehension  if  he  appeal  to  the  body  of  the 
people  against  those  who  are  more  immediately  its 
representatives  than  himself  in  any  case  of  doubt 
ful  expediency,  before  discussion  is  exhausted,  and 
where  the  difference  may  well  seem  one  of  personal 
pique  rather  than  of  considerate  judgment.  This 
is  to  degrade  us  from  a  republic,  in  whose  fore- 
ordered  periodicity  of  submission  to  popular  judg 
ment  democracy  has  guarded  itself  against  its  own 
passions,  to  a  mass  meeting,  where  momentary  in 
terest,  panic,  or  persuasive  sophistry  —  all  of  them 
gregarious  influences,  and  all  of  them  contagious  — 
may  decide  by  a  shout  what  years  of  afterthought 
may  find  it  hard,  or  even  impossible,  to  undo.  There 


240  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

have  been  some  things  in  the  deportment  of  the 
President  of  late  that  have  suggested  to  thoughtful 
men  rather  the  pettish  foible  of  wilfulness  than  the 
strength  of  well-trained  and  conscientious  will.  It  is 
by  the  objects  for  whose  sake  the  force  of  volition 
is  called  into  play  that  we  decide  whether  it  is 
childish  or  manly,  whether  we  are  to  call  it  obsti 
nacy  or  firmness.  Our  own  judgment  can  draw  no 
favorable  augury  from  meetings  gathered  "  to  sus 
tain  the  President,"  as  it  is  called,  especially  if  we 
consider  the  previous  character  of  those  who  are 
prominent  in  them,  nor  from  the  ill-considered 
gossip  about  a  "  President's  party ; "  and  the^ 
would  excite  our  apprehension  of  evil  to  come, 
did  we  not  believe  that  the  experience  of  the  last 
five  years  had  settled  into  convictions  in  the  mind 
of  the  people.  The  practical  result  to  which  all 
benevolent  men  finally  come  is  that  it  is  idle  to  try 
to  sustain  any  man  who  has  not  force  of  character 
enough  to  sustain  himself  without  their  help,  and 
the  only  party  which  has  any  chance  now  before 
the  people  is  that  of  resolute  good  sense.  What 
is  now  demanded  of  Congress  is  unanimity  in  the 
best  course  that  is  feasible.  They  should  recollect 
that  Wisdom  is  more  likely  to  be  wounded  in  the 
division  of  those  who  should  be  her  friends,  than 
either  of  the  parties  to  the  quarrel.  Our  difficul 
ties  are  by  no  means  so  great  as  timid  or  interested 
people  would  represent  them  to  be.  We  are  to 
decide,  it  is  true,  for  posterity;  but  the  question 
presented  to  us  is  precisely  that  which  every  man 
has  to  decide  in  making  his  will,  —  neither  greater 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     241 

nor  less  than  that,  nor  demanding  a  wisdom  above 
what  that  demands.  The  power  is  in  our  own 
hands,  so  long  as  it  is  prudent  for  us  to  keep  it 
there;  and  we  are  justified,  not  in  doing  simply 
what  we  will  with  our  own,  but  what  is  best  to  be 
done.  The  great  danger  in  the  present  posture  of 
affairs  seems  to  be  lest  the  influence  which  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  case  was  inherent  in  the  occasion  and  the 
man  should  have  held  over  in  the  popular  mind  as 
if  it  were  entailed  upon  the  office.  To  our  minds 
more  is  to  be  apprehended  in  such  a  conjuncture 
from  the  weakness  than  from  the  strength  of  the 
President's  character. 

There  is  another  topic  which  we  feel  obliged  to 
comment  on,  regretting  deeply,  as  we  do,  that  the 
President  has  given  us  occasion  for  it,  and  believ 
ing,  as  we  would  fain  do,  that  his  own  better  judg 
ment  will  lead  him  to  abstain  from  it  in  the  future. 
He  has  most  unfortunately  permitted  himself  to 
assume  a  sectional  ground.  Geography  is  learned 
to  little  purpose  in  Tennessee,  if  it  does  not  teach 
that  the  Northeast  as  well  as  the  Southwest  is  an 
integral  and  necessary  part  of  the  United  States. 
By  the  very  necessity  of  his  high  office,  a  Presi 
dent  becomes  an  American,  whose  concern  is  with 
the  outward  boundaries  of  his  country,  and  not  its 
internal  subdivisions.  One  great  object  of  the 
war,  we  had  supposed,  was  to  abolish  all  fallacies 
of  sectional  distinction  in  a  patriotism  that  could 
embrace  something  wider  than  a  township,  a 
county,  or  even  a  State.  But  Mr.  Johnson  has 
chosen  to  revive  the  paltry  party-cries  from  before 


242  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

that  deluge  which  we  hoped  had  washed  everything 
clean,  and  to  talk  of  treason  at  both  ends  of  the 
Union,  as  if  there  were  no  difference  between 
men  who  attempted  the  life  of  their  country,  and 
those  who  differ  from  him  in  their  judgment  of 
what  is  best  for  her  future  safety  and  greatness. 
We  have  heard  enough  of  New  England  radical 
ism,  as  if  that  part  of  the  country  where  there 
is  the  most  education  and  the  greatest  accumula 
tion  of  property  in  the  hands  of  the  most  holders 
were  the  most  likely  to  be  carried  away  by  what  are 
called  agrarian  theories.  All  that  New  England 
and  the  West  demand  is  that  America  should  be 
American ;  that  every  relic  of  a  barbarism  more 
archaic  than  any  institution  of  the  Old  World 
should  be  absolutely  and  irrecoverably  destroyed ; 
that  there  should  be  no  longer  two  peoples  here, 
but  one,  homogeneous  and  powerful  by  a  sympa 
thy  in  idea.  Does  Mr.  Johnson  desire  anything 
more  ?  Does  he,  alas  !  desire  anything  less  ?  If  so, 
it  may  be  the  worse  for  his  future  fame,  but  it  will 
not  and  cannot  hinder  the  irresistible  march  of 
that  national  instinct  which  forced  us  into  war, 
brought  us  out  of  it  victorious,  and  will  not  now 
be  cheated  of  its  fruits.  If  we  may  trust  those 
who  have  studied  the  matter,  it  is  moderate  to  say 
that  more  than  half  the  entire  population  of  the 
Free  States  is  of  New  England  descent,  much  more 
than  half  the  native  population.  It  is  by  the  votes 
of  these  men  that  Mr.  Johnson  holds  his  office ;  it 
was  as  the  exponent  of  their  convictions  of  duty 
and  policy  that  he  was  chosen  to  it.  Not  a  vote 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     243 

did  he  or  could  he  get  in  a  single  one  of  the  States 
in  rebellion.  If  they  were  the  American  people 
when  they  elected  him  to  execute  their  will,  are  they 
less  the  American  people  now  ?  It  seems  to  us  the 
idlest  of  all  possible  abstractions  now  to  discuss  the 
question  whether  the  rebellious  States  were  ever 
out  of  the  Union  or  not,  as  if  that  settled  the  right 
of  secession.  The  victory  of  superior  strength 
settled  it,  and  nothing  else.  For  four  years  they 
were  practically  as  much  out  of  the  Union  as 
Japan ;  had  they  been  strong  enough,  they  would 
have  continued  out  of  it ;  and  what  matters  it 
where  they  were  theoretically  ?  Why,  until  Queen 
Victoria,  every  English  sovereign  assumed  the 
style  of  King  of  France.  The  King  of  Sardinia 
was,  and  the  King  of  Italy,  we  suppose,  is  still  tit 
ular  King  of  Jerusalem.  Did  either  monarch  ever 
exercise  sovereignty  or  levy  taxes  in  those  imagi 
nary  dominions?  What  the  war  accomplished  for 
us  was  the  reduction  of  an  insurgent  population ; 
and  what  it  settled  was,  not  the  right  of  secession, 
for  that  must  always  depend  on  will  and  strength, 
but  that  every  inhabitant  of  every  State  was  a  sub 
ject  as  well  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  —  in 
short,  that  the  theory  of  freedom  was  limited  by 
the  equally  necessary  theory  of  authority.  We 
hoped  to  hear  less  in  future  of  the  possible  inter 
pretations  by  which  the  Constitution  may  be  made 
to  mean  this  or  that,  and  more  of  what  will  help 
the  present  need  and  conduce  to  the  future  strength 
and  greatness  of  the  whole  country.  It  was  by 
precisely  such  constitutional  quibbles,  educating 


244  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

men  to  believe  they  had  a  right  to  claim  whatever 
they  could  sophistically  demonstrate  to  their  own 
satisfaction,  —  and  self-interest  is  the  most  cunning 
of  sophists,  —  that  we  were  interpreted,  in  spite  of 
ourselves,  into  civil  war.  It  was  by  just  such  a 
misunderstanding  of  one  part  of  the  country  by 
another  as  that  to  which  Mr.  Johnson  has  lent  the 
weight  of  his  name  and  the  authority  of  his  place, 
that  rendered  a  hearty  national  sympathy,  and  may 
render  a  lasting  reorganization,  impossible. 

If  history  were  still  written  as  it  was  till  within 
two  centuries,  and  the  author  put  into  the  mouth 
of  his  speakers  such  words  as  his  conception  of  the 
character  and  the  situation  made  probable  and  fit 
ting,  we  could  conceive  an  historian  writing  a  hun 
dred  years  hence  to  imagine  some  such  speech  as 
this  for  Mr.  Johnson  in  an  interview  with  a  South 
ern  delegation. 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am  glad  to  meet  you  once  more 
as  friends,  I  wish  I  might  say  as  fellow-citizens. 
How  soon  we  may  again  stand  in  that  relation  to 
each  other  depends  wholly  upon  yourselves.  You 
have  been  pleased  to  say  that  my  birth  and  life 
long  associations  gave  you  confidence  that  I  would 
be  friendly  to  the  South.  In  so  saying,  you  do  no 
more  than  justice  to  my  heart  and  my  intentions ; 
but  you  must  allow  me  to  tell  you  frankly,  that,  if 
you  use  the  word  South  in  any  other  than  a  purely 
geographical  sense,  the  sooner  you  convince  your 
selves  of  its  impropriety  as  addressed  to  an  Amer 
ican  President,  the  better.  The  South  as  a  politi 
cal  entity  was  Slavery,  and  went  out  of  existence 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     245 

with  it.  And  let  me  also,  as  naturally  connected 
with  this  topic,  entreat  you  to  disabuse  your  minds 
of  the  fatally  mistaken  theory  that  you  have  been 
conquered  by  the  North.  It  is  the  American  peo 
ple  who  are  victors  in  this  conflict,  and  who  intend 
to  inflict  no  worse  penalty  on  you  than  that  of  ad 
mitting  you  to  an  entire  equality  with  themselves. 
They  are  resolved,  by  God's  grace,  to  Americanize 
you,  and  America  means  education,  equality  before 
the  law,  and  every  upward  avenue  of  life  made  as 
free  to  one  man  as  another.  You  urge  upon  me, 
with  great  force  and  variety  of  argument,  the  mani 
fold  evils  of  the  present  unsettled  state  of  things,  the 
propriety  and  advantage  of  your  being  represented 
in  both  houses  of  Congress,  the  injustice  of  taxation 
without  representation.  I  admit  the  importance 
of  every  one  of  these  considerations,  but  I  think 
you  are  laboring  under  some  misapprehension  of  the 
actual  state  of  affairs.  I  know  not  if  any  of  you 
have  been  in  America  since  the  spring  of  1861,  or 
whether  (as  I  rather  suspect)  you  have  all  been 
busy  in  Europe  endeavoring  to  —  but  I  beg  par 
don,  I  did  not  intend  to  say  anything  that  should 
recall  old  animosities.  But  intelligence  is  slow  to 
arrive  in  any  part  of  the  world,  and  intelligence 
from  America  painfully  so  in  reaching  Europe. 
You  do  not  seem  to  be  aware  that  something  has 
happened  here  during  the  last  four  years,  some 
thing  that  has  made  a  very  painful  and  lasting  im 
pression  on  the  memory  of  the  American  people, 
whose  voice  on  this  occasion  I  have  the  honor  to 
be.  They  feel  constrained  to  demand  that  you 


246  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

shall  enter  into  bonds  to  keep  the  peace.  They  do 
not,  I  regret  to  say,  agree  with  you  in  looking  upon 
what  has  happened  here  of  late  as  only  a  more  em 
phatic  way  of  settling  a  Presidential  election,  the 
result  of  which  leaves  both  parties  entirely  free 
to  try  again.  They  seem  to  take  the  matter  much 
more  seriously.  Nor  do  they,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
agree  with  you  in  your  estimate  of  the  importance 
of  conserving  your  several  state  sovereignties,  as 
you  continue  to  call  them,  insisting  much  rather 
on  the  conservation  of  America  and  of  American 
ideas.  They  say  that  the  only  thing  which  can 
individualize  or  perpetuate  a  commonwealth  is  to 
have  a  history ;  and  they  ask  which  of  the  States 
lately  in  rebellion,  except  Virginia  and  South 
Carolina,  had  anything  of  the  kind  ?  In  spite  of 
my  natural  sympathies,  gentlemen,  my  reason  com 
pels  me  to  agree  with  them.  Your  strength,  such 
as  it  was,  was  due  less  to  the  fertility  of  your 
brains  than  to  that  of  your  soil  and  to  the  inven 
tion  of  the  Yankee  Whitney  which  you  used  and 
never  paid  for.  You  tell  me  it  is  hard  to  put  you 
on  a  level  with  your  negroes.  As  a  believer  in 
the  superiority  of  the  white  race,  I  cannot  admit 
the  necessity  of  enforcing  that  superiority  by  law. 
A  Roman  emperor  once  said  that  gold  never  re 
tained  the  unpleasant  odor  of  its  source,  and  I  must 
say  to  you  that  loyalty  is  sweet  to  me,  whether  it 
throb  under  a  black  skin  or  a  white.  The  Amer 
ican  people  has  learned  of  late  to  set  a  greater 
value  on  the  color  of  ideas  than  on  shades  of  com 
plexion.  As  to  the  injustice  of  taxation  without 


THE  PRESIDENT   ON  THE  STUMP-     247 

representation,  that  is  an  idea  derived  from  our 
English  ancestors,  and  is  liable,  like  all  rules,  to 
the  exceptions  of  necessity.  I  see  no  reason  why 
a  State  may  not  as  well  be  disfranchised  as  a  bor 
ough  for  an  illegal  abuse  of  its  privileges  ;  nor  do 
I  quite  feel  the  parity  of  the  reason  which  should 
enable  you  to  do  that  with  a  loyal  black  which  we 
may  not  do  with  a  disloyal  white.  Remember  that 
this  government  is  bound  by  every  obligation,  ethi 
cal  and  political,  to  protect  these  people  because 
they  are  weak,  and  to  reward  them  (if  the  common 
privilege  of  manhood  may  be  called  a  reward)  be 
cause  they  are  faithful.  We  are  not  fanatics,  but 
a  nation  that  has  neither  faith  in  itself  nor  faith 
toward  others  must  soon  crumble  to  pieces  by  moral 
dry-rot.  If  we  may  conquer  you,  gentlemen,  (and 
you  forced  the  necessity  upon  us,)  we  may  surely 
impose  terms  upon  you ;  for  it  is  an  old  principle 
of  law  that  cui  liceat  majus,  ei  licet  etiam  minus. 
"  In  your  part  of  the  country,  gentlemen,  that 
which  we  should  naturally  appeal  to  as  the  friend  of 
order  and  stability  —  property  —  is  blindly  against 
us ;  prejudice  is  also  against  us  ;  and  we  have  noth 
ing  left  to  which  we  can  appeal  but  human  nature 
and  the  common  privilege  of  manhood.  You  seem 
to  have  entertained  some  hope  that  I  would  gather 
about  myself  a  4  President's  party,'  which  should  be 
more  friendly  to  you  and  those  animosities  which 
you  mistake  for  interests.  But  you  grossly  deceive 
yourselves ;  I  have  no  sympathy  but  with  my 
whole  country,  and  there  is  nothing  out  of  which 
such  a  party  as  you  dream  of  could  be  constructed, 


248  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

except  the  broken  remnant  of  those  who  deserted 
you  when  for  the  first  time  you  needed  their  help 
and  not  their  subserviency,  and  those  feathery 
characters  who  are  drawn  hither  and  thither  by 
the  chances  of  office.  I  need  not  say  to  you  that  I 
am  and  can  be  nothing  in  this  matter  but  the  voice 
of  the  nation's  deliberate  resolve.  The  recent  past 
is  too  painful,  the  immediate  future  too  momentous, 
to  tolerate  any  personal  considerations.  You  throw 
yourselves  upon  our  magnanimity,  and  I  must  be 
frank  with  you.  My  predecessor,  Mr.  Buchanan, 
taught  us  the  impolicy  of  weakness  and  concession. 
The  people  are  magnanimous,  but  they  understand 
by  magnanimity  a  courageous  steadiness  in  prin 
ciple.  They  do  not  think  it  possible  that  a  large 
heart  should  consist  with  a  narrow  brain ;  and 
they  would  consider  it  pusillanimous  in  them  to 
consent  to  the  weakness  of  their  country  by  admit 
ting  you  to  a  share  in  its  government  before  you 
have  given  evidence  of  sincere  loyalty  to  its  prin 
ciples,  or,  at  least,  of  wholesome  fear  of  its  power. 
They  believe,  and  I  heartily  agree  with  them,  that 
a  strong  nation  begets  strong  citizens,  and  a  weak 
one  weak,  —  that  the  powers  of  the  private  man 
are  invigorated  and  enlarged  by  his  confidence  in 
the  power  of  the  body  politic ;  and  they  see  no 
possible  means  of  attaining  or  securing  this  needed 
strength  but  in  that  hoinogeneousness  of  laws  and 
institutions  which  breeds  unanimity  of  ideas  and 
sentiments,  no  way  of  arriving  at  that  homogene- 
ousness  but  the  straightforward  path  of  perfect 
confidence  in  freedom.  All  nations  have  a  right  to 


THE  PRESIDENT  ON  THE  STUMP.     249 

security,  ours  to  greatness  ;  and  must  have  the  one 
as  an  essential  preliminary  to  the  other.  If  your 
prejudices  stand  in  the  way,  and  you  are  too  weak 
to  rid  yourselves  of  them,  it  will  be  for  the  Ameri 
can  people  to  consider  whether  the  plain  duty  of 
conquering  them  for  you  will  be,  after  all,  so  diffi 
cult  a  conquest  as  some  they  have  already  achieved. 
By  yourselves  or  us  they  must  be  conquered. 
Gentlemen,  in  bidding  you  farewell,  I  ask  you  to 
consider  whether  you  have  not  forgotten  that,  in 
order  to  men's  living  peacefully  together  in  com 
munities,  the  idea  of  government  must  precede 
that  of  liberty,  and  that  the  one  is  as  much  the 
child  of  necessity  as  the  other  is  a  slow  concession 
to  civilization,  which  itself  mainly  consists  in  the 
habit  of  obedience  to  something  more  refined  than 
force." 


THE   SEWARD-JOHNSON   REACTION. 
1866. 

THE  late  Philadelphia  experiment  at  making  a 
party  out  of  nullities  reminds  us  of  nothing  so 
much  as  of  the  Irishman's  undertaking  to  produce 
a  very  palatable  soup  out  of  no  more  costly  mate 
rial  than  a  pebble.  Of  course  he  was  to  be  fur 
nished  with  a  kettle  as  his  field  of  operations,  and 
after  that  he  asked  only  for  just  the  least  bit  of 
beef  in  the  world  to  give  his  culinary  miracle  a 
flavor,  and  a  pinch  of  salt  by  way  of  relish.  As 
nothing  could  be  more  hollow  and  empty  than  the 
pretence  on  which  the  new  movement  was  founded, 
nothing  more  coppery  than  the  material  out  of  which 
it  was  mainly  composed,  we  need  look  no  further 
for  the  likeness  of  a  kettle  wherewith  to  justify  our 
comparison  ;  as  for  the  stone,  nothing  could  be 
more  like  that  than  the  Northern  disunion  faction, 
which  was  to  be  the  chief  ingredient  in  the  new 
fangled  pottage,  and  whose  leading  characteristic 
for  the  last  five  years  has  been  a  uniform  alacrity 
in  going  under  ;  the  offices  in  the  gift  of  the  Presi 
dent  might  very  well  be  reckoned  on  to  supply  the 
beef  which  should  lead  by  their  noses  the  weary 
expectants  whose  hunger  might  be  too  strong  for 
their  nicety  of  stomach  ;  and  the  pinch  of  salt,  — 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     251 

why  could  not  that  be  found  in  the  handful  of  Be- 
publicans  who  might  be  drawn  over  by  love  of 
notoriety,  private  disgusts,  or  that  mixture  of  mo 
tives  which  has  none  of  the  substance  of  opinion, 
much  less  of  the  tenacity  of  principle,  but  which 
is  largely  operative  in  the  action  of  illogical  minds  ? 
But  the  people  ?  Would  they  be  likely  to  have 
their  appetite  aroused  by  the  fumes  of  this  thin 
decoction  ?  Where  a  Chinaman  is  cook,  one  is  apt 
to  be  a  little  suspicious  ;  and  if  the  Address  in 
which  the  Convention  advertised  their  ingenious 
mess  had  not  a  little  in  its  verbiage  to  remind  one 
of  the  flowery  kingdom,  there  was  something  in 
that  part  of  the  assemblage  which  could  claim  any 
bygone  merit  of  Republicanism  calculated  to  stim 
ulate  rather  than  to  allay  any  dreadful  surmise  of 
the  sagacious  rodent  which  our  antipodes  are  said 
to  find  savory.  And  as  for  the  people,  it  is  a  curi 
ous  fact,  that  the  party  which  has  always  been 
loudest  to  profess  its  faith  in  their  capacity  of  self- 
government  has  been  the  last  to  conceive  it  pos 
sible  that  they  should  apprehend  a  principle,  arrive 
at  a  logical  conclusion,  or  be  influenced  by  any 
other  than  a  mean  motive.  The  cordons  bleus  of 
the  political  cooks  at  Philadelphia  were  men  admi 
rably  adapted  for  the  petty  intrigues  of  a  local 
caucus,  but  by  defect  of  nature  profoundly  uncon 
scious  of  that  simple  process  of  generalization  from 
a  few  plain  premises  by  which  the  popular  mind 
is  guided  in  times  like  these,  and  upon  questions 
which  appeal  to  the  moral  instincts  of  men. 

The  Convention  was  well  managed,  we  freely 


252  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

admit,  —  and  why  not,  when  all  those  who  were 
allowed  to  have  any  leading  part  in  it  belonged 
exclusively  to  that  class  of  men  who  are  known  as 
party  managers,  and  who,  like  the  director  of  a 
theatre  or  a  circus,  look  upon  the  mass  of  mankind 
as  creatures  to  be  influenced  by  a  taking  title,  by 
amplitude  of  posters,  and  by  a  thrilling  sensation 
or  two,  no  matter  how  coarse  ?  As  for  the  title, 
nothing  could  be  better  than  that  of  the  "  Devoted 
Unionists,"  —  and  were  not  the  actors,  no  less  than 
the  scenery  and  decorations,  for  the  most  part 
entirely  new,  —  at  least  in  that  particular  play? 
Advertisement  they  did  not  lack,  with  the  whole 
Democratic  press  and  the  Department  of  State  at 
their  service,  not  to  speak  of  the  real  clown  be 
ing  allowed  to  exhibit  himself  at  short  intervals 
upon  the  highest  platform  in  this  or  any  other  coun 
try.  And  if  we  ask  for  sensation,  never  were  so 
many  performers  exhibited  together  in  their  grand 
act  of  riding  two  horses  at  once,  or  leaping  through 
a  hoop  with  nothing  more  substantial  to  resist  them 
than  the  tissue-paper  of  former  professions,  nay,  of 
recent  pledges.  And  yet  the  skill  of  the  managers 
had  something  greater  still  behind,  in  Massachu 
setts  linked  arm  in  arm  with  South  Carolina.  To 
be  sure,  a  thoughtful  mind  might  find  something 
like  a  false  syllogism  in  pairing  off  a  Commonwealth 
whose  greatest  sin  it  has  been  to  lead  the  van  in 
freedom  of  opinion,  and  in  those  public  methods  of 
enlightenment  which  make  it  a  safeguard  of  popular 
government,  with  an  Oligarchy  whose  leadership 
has  been  in  precisely  the  opposite  direction,  as  if 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     253 

both  had  equally,  sinned  against  American  ideas. 
But  such  incongruities  are  trifles  no  greater  than 
those  of  costume  so  common  on  every  stage  ;  and 
perhaps  the  only  person  to  be  pitied  in  the  exhibi 
tion  was  Governor  Orr,  who  had  once  uttered  a 
hope  that  his  own  State  might  one  day  walk  abreast 
with  the  daughter  of  Puritan  forethought  in  the 
nobler  procession  of  prosperous  industry,  and  who 
must  have  felt  a  slight  shock  of  surprise,  if  nothing 
more,  at  the  form  in  which  Massachusetts  had 
chosen  to  incarnate  herself  on  that  particular  occa 
sion.  We  cannot  congratulate  the  Convention  on 
the  name  of  its  chairman,  for  there  is  something 
ominously  suggestive  in  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Doolittle  has  a 
remarkably  powerful  voice,  which  is  certainly  one 
element  in  the  manufacture  of  sound  opinions.  A 
little  too  much  latitude  was  allowed  to  Mr.  Ray 
mond  in  the  Address,  though  on  the  whole  perhaps 
it  was  prudent  to  make  that  document  so  long  as  to 
insure  it  against  being  read.  In  their  treatment 
of  Mr.  Vallandigham  the  managers  were  prudent. 
He  was  allowed  to  appear  just  enough  not  quite  to 
alienate  his  party,  on  whom  the  new  movement 
counts  largely  for  support,  and  just  not  enough  to 
compromise  the  Convention  with  the  new  recruits 
it  had  made  among  those  who  would  follow  the 
name  Conservative  into  anything  short  of  down 
right  anarchy.  The  Convention,  it  must  be  con 
fessed,  had  a  rather  hard  problem  to  solve,  —  no 
thing  less  than  to  make  their  patent  reconciliation 
cement  out  of  fire  and  gunpowder,  both  useful 


254  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

things  in  themselves,  but  liable  in  concert  to  bring 
about  some  odd  results  in  the  way  of  harmonious 
action.  It  is  generally  thought  wiser  to  keep  them 
apart,  and  accordingly  Mr.  Vallandigham  was  ex 
cluded  from  the  Convention  altogether,  and  the 
Southern  delegates  were  not  allowed  any  share  in 
the  Address  or  Resolutions.  Indeed,  as  the  North 
ern  members  were  there  to  see  what  they  could 
make,  and  the  Southern  to  find  out  how  much  they 
could  save,  and  whatever  could  be  made  or  saved 
was  to  come  out  of  the  North,  it  was  more  prudent 
to  leave  all  matters  of  policy  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  were  supposed  to  understand  best  the  weak 
side  of  the  intended  victim.  The  South  was  really 
playing  the  game,  and  is  to  have  the  lion's  share  of 
the  winnings ;  but  it  is  only  as  a  disinterested 
bystander,  who  looks  over  the  cards  of  one  of  the 
parties,  and  guides  his  confederate  by  hints  so 
adroitly  managed  as  not  to  alarm  the  pigeon.  The 
Convention  avoided  the  reef  where  the  wreck  of 
the  Chicago  lies  bleaching ;  but  we  are  not  so  sure 
that  they  did  not  ground  themselves  fast  upon  the 
equally  dangerous  mud-bank  that  lies  on  the  op 
posite  side  of  the  honest  channel.  At  Chicago  they 
were  so  precisely  frank  as  to  arouse  indignation ; 
at  Philadelphia  they  are  so  careful  of  generalities 
that  they  make  us  doubtful,  if  not  suspicious.  Does 
the  expectation  or  even  the  mere  hope  of  pudding 
make  the  utterance  as  thick  as  if  the  mouth  were 
already  full  of  it  ?  As  to  the  greater  part  of  the 
Resolutions,  they  were  political  truisms  in  which 
everybody  would  agree  as  so  harmless  that  the  Con- 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     255 

vention  might  almost  as  well  have  resolved  the 
multiplication  table  article  by  article.  The  Address 
was  far  less  explicit ;  and  where  there  is  so  very 
much  meal,  it  is  perhaps  not  altogether  unchari 
table  to  suspect  that  there  may  be  something  under 
it.  There  is  surely  a  suspicious  bulge  here  and 
there,  that  has  the  look  of  the  old  Democratic  cat. 
But,  after  all,  of  what  consequence  are  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  party,  when  President  Johnson  covers 
them  all  when  he  puts  on  his  hat,  and  may  change 
them  between  dinner  and  tea,  as  he  has  done  several 
times  already?  The  real  principle  of  the  party, 
its  seminal  and  vital  principle  alike,  is  the  power 
of  the  President,  and  its  policy  is  every  moment  at 
the  mercy  of  his  discretion.  That  power  has  too 
often  been  the  plaything  of  whim,  and  that  discre 
tion  the  victim  of  ill-temper  or  vanity,  for  us  to 
have  any  other  feeling  left  than  regret  for  the  one 
and  distrust  of  the  other. 

The  new  party  does  not  seem  to  have  drawn 
to  itself  any  great  accession  of  strength  from  the 
Republican  side,  or  indeed  to  have  made  many 
converts  that  were  not  already  theirs  in  fact,  though 
not  in  name.  It  was  joined,  of  course,  at  once  by 
the  little  platoon  of  gentlemen  calling  themselves, 
for  some  mystical  reason,  Conservatives,  who  have 
for  some  time  been  acting  with  the  Democratic 
faction,  carefully  keeping  their  handkerchiefs  to 
their  noses  all  the  while.  But  these  involuntary 
Catos  are  sure,  as  if  by  instinct,  to  choose  that 
side  which  is  doomed  not  to  please  the  gods,  and 
their  adhesion  is  as  good  as  a  warranty  of  defeat. 


256  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

During  the  President's  progress  they  must  often 
have  been  driven  to  their  handkerchiefs  again. 
It  was  a  great  blunder  of  Mr.  Seward  to  allow 
him  to  assume  the  apostolate  of  the  new  creed  in 
person,  for  every  word  he  has  uttered  must  have 
convinced  many,  even  of  those  unwilling  to  make 
the  admission,  that  a  doctrine  could  hardly  be 
§ound  which  had  its  origin  and  derives  its  power 
from  a  source  so  impure.  For  so  much  of  Mr. 
Johnson's  harangues  as  is  not  positively  shocking, 
we  know  of  no  parallel  so  close  as  in  his  Imperial 
Majesty  Kobes  I. :  — 

"  Er  riihmte  class  er  nie  studirt 

Auf  Universitaten 

Und  Reden  sprach  aus  sich  selbst  heraus, 
Ganz  ohne  Facultaten." 

And  when  we  consider  his  power  of  tears ;  when 
we  remember  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson  and  Mr.  An 
drew  Johnson  confronting  each  other  like  two 
augurs,  the  one  trying  not  to  laugh  while  he  saw 
the  other  trying  to  cry;  when  we  recall  the 
touching  scene  at  Canaudaigua,  where  the  Presi 
dent  was  overpowered  by  hearing  the  pathetic 
announcement  that  Stephen  A.  Douglas  had  for 
two  years  attended  the  academy  in  what  will  doubt 
less  henceforward  be  dubbed  that  "  classic  locality," 
we  cannot  help  thinking  of 

"  In  seinem  schonen  Auge  glanzt 
Die  Thrane,  die  Stereotype." 

Indeed,  if  the  exhibition  of  himself  were  not  so 
profoundly  sad,  when  we  think  of  the  high  place 
he  occupies  and  the  great  man  he  succeeded  in  it, 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     257 

nothing  could  well  be  so  comic  as  some  of  the  in 
cidents  of  Mr.  Johnson's  tour.  No  satirist  could 
have  conceived  anything  so  bewitchingly  absurd  as 
the  cheers  which  greeted  the  name  of  Simeon  at 
the  dinner  in  New  York,  whether  we  suppose  the 
audience  to  have  thought  him  some  eminent  mem 
ber  of  their  party  of  whom  they  had  never  heard, 
or  whom  they  had  forgotten  as  thoroughly  as  they 
had  Mr.  Douglas,  or  if  we  consider  that  they  were 
involuntarily  giving  vent  to  their  delight  at  the 
pleasing  prospect  opened  by  their  "  illustrious 
guest's "  allusion  to  his  speedy  departure.  Nor 
could  anything  have  been  imagined  beforehand 
so  ludicrously  ominous  as  Mr.  Seward's  fears  lest 
the  platform  should  break  down  under  them  at 
Niagara.  They  were  groundless  fears,  it  is  true, 
for  the  Johnson  platform  gave  way  irreparably 
on  the  22d  of  February ;  but  they  at  least  luckily 
prevented  Nicholas  Bottom  Cromwell  from  utter 
ing  his  after-dinner  threat  against  the  people's 
immediate  representatives,  against  the  very  body 
whose  vote  supplies  the  funds  of  his  party,  and 
whose  money,  it  seems,  is  constitutional,  even  if 
its  own  existence  as  a  Congress  be  not.  We  pity 
Mr.  Seward  in  his  new  office  of  bear-leader. 
How  he  must  hate  his  Bruin  when  it  turns  out 
that  his  tricks  do  not  even  please  the  crowd ! 

But  the  ostensible  object  of  this  indecent  orgy 
seems  to  us  almost  as  discreditable  as  the  purpose 
it  veiled  so  thinly.  Who  was  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
that  the  President,  with  his  Cabinet  and  the  two 
highest  officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  should  add 


258  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

their  official  dignity  to  the  raising  of  his  monument, 
and  make  the  whole  country  an  accomplice  in  con 
secrating  his  memory?  His  name  is  not  associated 
with  a  single  measure  of  national  importance,  un 
less  upon  the  wrong  side.  So  far  was  he  from 
being  a  statesman  that,  even  on  the  lower  ground 
of  politics,  both  his  principles  and.  his  expression 
of  them  were  tainted  with  the  reek  of  vulgar  asso 
ciations.  A  man  of  naturally  great  abilities  he 
certainly  was,  but  wholly  without  that  instinct  for 
the  higher  atmosphere  of  thought  or  ethics  which 
alone  makes  them  of  value  to  any  but  their  pos 
sessor,  and  without  which  they  are  more  often  dan 
gerous  than  serviceable  to  the  commonwealth.  He 
habitually  courted  those  weaknesses  in  the  people 
which  tend  to  degrade  them  into  a  populace,  in 
stead  of  appealing  to  the  virtues  that  grow  by  use, 
and  whose  mere  acknowledgment  in  a  man  in  some 
sort  ennobles  him.  And  by  doing  this  he  proved 
that  he  despised  the  very  masses  whose  sweet 
breaths  he  wooed,  and  had  no  faith  in  the  system 
under  which  alone  such  a  one  as  he  could  have 
been  able  to  climb  so  high.  He  never  deserted  the 
South  to  take  side  with  the  country  till  the  South 
had  both  betrayed  and  deserted  him.  If  such  a 
man  were  the  fairest  outcome  of  Democracy,  then 
is  it  indeed  a  wretched  failure.  But  for  the  facti 
tious  importance  given  to  his  name  by  the  necessity 
of  furnishing  the  President  with  a  pretext  for 
stumping  the  West  in  the  interest  of  Congress, 
Mr.  Douglas  would  be  wellnigh  as  utterly  forgotten 
as  Cass  or  Tyler,  or  Buchanan  or  Fillinore  ;  nor 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     259 

should  we  have  alluded  to  him  now  but  that  the 
recent  pilgrimage  has  made  his  name  once  more 
public  property,  and  because  we  think  it  a  common 
misfortune  when  such  men  are  made  into  saints, 
though  for  any  one's  advantage  but  their  own. 
We  certainly  have  no  wish  to  play  the  part  of 
advocatus  diaboli  on  such  an  occasion,  even  were 
it  necessary  at  a  canonization  where  the  office  of 
Pontifex  Maximus  is  so  appropriately  filled  by  Mr. 
Johnson. 

In  speaking  of  the  late  unhappy  exposure  of 
the  unseemly  side  of  democratic  institutions,  we 
have  been  far  from  desirous  of  insisting  on  Mr. 
Seward's  share  in  it.  We  endeavored  to  account 
for  it  at  first  by  supposing  that  the  Secretary  of 
State,  seeing  into  the  hands  of  how  vain  and  weak 
a  man  the  reins  of  administration  had  fallen,  was 
willing,  by  flattering  his  vanity,  to  control  his 
weakness  for  the  public  good.  But  we  are  forced 
against  our  will  to  give  up  any  such  theory,  and  to 
confess  that  Mr.  Seward's  nature  has  been  "  sub 
dued  to  what  it  works  in."  We  see  it  with  sincere 
sorrow,  and  are  far  from  adding  our  voice  to  the 
popular  outcry  against  a  man  the  long  and  honor 
able  services  of  whose  prime  we  are  not  willing  to 
forget  in  the  decline  of  his  abilities  and  that  dry- 
rot  of  the  mind's  nobler  temper  which  so  often  re 
sults  from  the  possession  of  power.  Long  contact 
with  the  meaner  qualities  of  men,  to  whose  infec 
tion  place  and  patronage  are  so  unhappily  exposed, 
could  not  fail  of  forcing  to  a  disproportionate 
growth  any  germs  of  that  cynicism  always  latent 


260  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

in  temperaments  so  exclusively  intellectual  and 
unmitigated  by  any  kindly  lenitive  of  humor. 
Timid  by  nature,  the  war  which  he  had  prophesied, 
but  had  not  foreseen,  and  which  invigorated  bolder 
men,  unbraced  him ;  and  while  the  spendthrift 
verbosity  of  his  despatches  was  the  nightmare  of 
foreign  ministries,  his  uncertain  and  temporizing 
counsels  were  the  perpetual  discouragement  of  his 
party  at  home.  More  than  any  minister  with 
whose  official  correspondence  we  are  acquainted, 
he  carried  the  principle  of  paper  money  into  diplo 
macy,  and  bewildered  Earl  Russell  and  M.  Drouyn 
de  Lhuys  with  a  horrible  doubt  as  to  the  real  value 
of  the  verbal  currency  they  were  obliged  to  receive. 
But,  unfortunately,  his  own  countrymen  were  also 
unprovided  with  a  price-current  of  the  latest  quota 
tion  in  phrases,  and  the  same  gift  of  groping  and 
inconclusive  generalities  which  perhaps  was  useful 
as  a  bewilderment  to  would-be  hostile  governments 
abroad  was  often  equally  effective  in  disheartening 
the  defenders  of  nationality  at  home.  We  cannot 
join  with  those  who  accuse  Mr.  Seward  of  betray 
ing  his  party,  for  we  think  ourselves  justified  by 
recent  events  in  believing  that  he  has  always  looked 
upon  parties  as  the  mere  ladders  of  ambitious  men ; 
and  when  his  own  broke  under  him  at  Chicago  in 
1860,  he  forthwith  began  to  cast  about  for  another, 
the  rounds  of  which  might  be  firmer  under  his 
feet.  He  is  not  the  first,  and  we  fear  will  not  be 
the  last,  of  our  public  men  who  have  thought  to 
climb  into  the  "White  House  by  a  back  window, 
and  have  come  ignominiously  to  the  ground  in  at- 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     261 

tempting  it.  Mr.  Seward's  view  of  the  matter 
probably  is  that  the  Republican  party  deserted  him 
six  years  ago,  and  that  he  was  thus  absolved  of  all 
obligations  to  it.  But  might  there  not  have  been 
such  a  thing  as  fidelity  to  its  principles  ?  Or  was 
Mr.  Seward  drawn  insensibly  into  the  acceptance 
of  them  by  the  drift  of  political  necessity,  and  did 
he  take  them  up  as  if  they  were  but  the  hand  that 
had  been  dealt  him  in  the  game,  not  from  any  con 
viction  of  their  moral  permanence  and  power,  per 
haps  with  no  perception  of  it,  but  from  a  mere 
intellectual  persuasion  of  the  use  that  might  be 
made  of  them  politically  and  for  the  nonce  by  a 
skilful  gamester?  We  should  be  very  unwilling 
to  admit  such  a  theory  of  his  character  ;  but  surely 
what  we  have  just  seen  would  seem  to  justify  it, 
for  we  can  hardly  conceive  that  any  one  should 
suddenly  descend  from  real  statesmanship  to  the 
use  of  such  catch-rabble  devices  as  those  with  which 
he  has  lately  disgusted  the  country.  A  small  poli 
tician  cannot  be  made  out  of  a  great  statesman, 
for  there  is  an  oppugnancy  of  nature  between  the 
two  things,  and  we  may  fairly  suspect  the  former 
winnings  of  a  man  who  has  been  once  caught  with 
loaded  dice  in  his  pocket.  However  firm  may  be 
Mr.  Seward's  faith  in  the  new  doctrine  of  John 
sonian  infallibility,  surely  he  need  not  have  made 
himself  a  partner  in  its  vulgarity.  And  yet  he 
has  attempted  to  vie  with  the  Jack-pudding  tricks 
of  the  unrivalled  performer  whose  man-of-business 
he  is,  in  attempting  a  popularity  (we  must  coin 
a  new  word  for  a  new  thing)  for  which  he  was 


262  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

exquisitely  unfitted.  What  more  stiffly  awkward 
than  his  essays  at  easy  familiarity  ?  What  more 
painfully  remote  from  drollery  than  his  efforts  to 
be  droll  ?  In  the  case  of  a  man  who  descends  so 
far  as  Mr.  Seward,  such  feats  can  be  character 
ized  by  no  other  word  so  aptly  as  by  tumbling. 
The  thing  would  be  sad  enough  in  any  prominent 
man,  but  in  him  it  becomes  a  public  shame,  for 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world  it  is  the  nation  that 
tumbles  in  its  Prime  Minister.  The  Secretary  of 
State's  place  may  be  dependent  on  the  President, 
but  the  dignity  of  it  belongs  to  the  country,  and 
neither  of  them  has  any  right  to  trifle  with  it.  Mr. 
Seward  might  stand  on  his  head  in  front  of  what 
Jenkins  calls  his  "  park  gate,"  at  Auburn,  and  we 
should  be  the  last  to  question  his  perfect  right  as 
a  private  citizen  to  amuse  himself  in  his  own  way, 
but  in  a  great  officer  of  the  government  such 
pranks  are  no  longer  harmless.  They  are  a  na 
tional  scandal,  and  not  merely  so,  but  a  national 
detriment,  inasmuch  as  they  serve  to  foster  in 
foreign  statesmen  a  profound  misapprehension  of 
the  American  people  and  of  the  motives  which  in 
fluence  them  in  questions  of  public  policy.  Never 
was  so  great  a  wrong  done  to  democracy,  nor  so 
great  an  insult  offered  to  it,  as  in  this  professional 
circuit  of  the  presidential  Punch  and  his  ministerial 
showman. 

Fortunately,  the  exhibitions  of  this  unlucky  pair, 
and  their  passing  round  the  hat  without  catching 
even  the  greasy  pence  they  courted,  have  very 
little  to  do  with  the  great  question  to  be  decided 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.      263 

at  the  next  elections,  except  in  so  far  as  we  may 
be  justified  in  suspecting  their  purity  of  motive 
who  could  consent  to  such  impurity  of  means,  and 
the  soundness  of  their  judgment  in  great  things 
who  in  small  ones  show  such  want  of  sagacity. 
The  crowds  they  have  drawn  are  no  index  of  popu 
lar  approval.  We  remember  seeing  the  prodigious 
nose  of  Mr.  Tyler  (for  the  person  behind  it  had 
been  added  by  nature  merely  as  the  handle  to  so 
I  fine  a  hatchet)  drawn  by  six  white  horses  through 
the  streets,  and  followed  by  an  eager  multitude, 
nine  tenths  of  whom  thought  the  man  belonging 
to  it  a  traitor  to  the  party  which  had  chosen  him. 
But  then  the  effigy  at  least  of  a  grandiose,  if  not 
a  great  man,  sat  beside  him,  and  the  display  was 
saved  from  contempt  by  the  massive  shape  of 
Webster,  beneath  which  he  showed  like  a  swallow 
against  a  thunder-cloud.  Even  Mr.  Fillmore,  to 
whom  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  denies  the  complete 
boon  of  an  otherwise  justly  earned  oblivion,  had 
some  dignity  given  to  his  administration  by  the 
presence  of  Everett.  But  in  this  late  advertising- 
tour  of  a  policy  in  want  of  a  party,  Cleon  and 
Agoracritus  seem  to  have  joined  partnership,  and 
the  manners  of  the  man  match  those  of  the  master. 
Mr.  Johnson  cannot  so  much  as  hope  for  the  suc 
cess  in  escaping  memory  achieved  by  the  last  of 
those  small  Virginians  whom  the  traditionary  fame 
of  a  State  once  fertile  in  statesmen  lifted  to  four 
years  of  imperial  pillory,  where  his  own  littleness 
seemed  to  heighten  rather  than  lower  the  grandeur 
of  his  station  ;  his  name  will  not  be  associated 


264  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

with  the  accomplishment  of  a  great  wrong  against 
humanity,  let  us  hope  not  with  the  futile  attempt 
at  one ;  but  he  will  be  indignantly  remembered  as 
the  first,  and  we  trust  the  last,  of  our  chief  magis 
trates  who  believed  in  the  brutality  of  the  peo 
ple,  and  gave  to  the  White  House  the  ill-savor 
of  a  corner-grocery.  He  a  tribune  of  the  people  ? 
A  lord  of  misrule,  an  abbot  of  unreason,  much 
rather ! 

No  one  can  object  more  strongly  than  we  to  the 
mixing  of  politics  with  personal  character ;  but 
they  are  here  inextricably  entangled  together,  and 
we  hold  it  to  be  the  duty  of  every  journal  in  the 
country  to  join  in  condemning  a  spectacle  which 
silence  might  seem  to  justify  as  a  common  event  in 
our  politics.  We  turn  gladly  from  the  vulgarity 
of  the  President  and  his  minister  to  consider  the 
force  of  their  arguments.  Mr.  Johnson  seems  to 
claim  that  he  has  not  betrayed  the  trust  to  which 
he  was  elected,  mainly  because  the  Union  party 
have  always  affirmed  that  the  rebellious  States 
could  not  secede,  and  therefore  ex  vi  termini  are 
still  in  the  Union.  The  corollary  drawn  from  this 
is,  that  they  have  therefore  a  manifest  right  to 
immediate  representation  in  Congress.  What  we 
have  always  understood  the  Union  party  as  meaning 
to  affirm  was,  that  a  State  had  no  right  to  secede  ; 
and  it  was  upon  that  question,  which  is  a  very  dif 
ferent  thing  from  the  other,  that  the  whole  con 
troversy  hinged.  To  assert  that  a  State  or  States 
could  not  secede,  if  they  were  strong  enough, 
would  be  an  absurdity.  In  point  of  fact,  all  but 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     265 

three  of  the  Slave  States  did  secede,  and  for  four 
years  it  would  have  been  treason  throughout  their 
whole  territory,  and  death  on  the  nearest  tree,  to 
assert  the  contrary.  The  law  forbids  a  man  to 
steal,  but  he  may  steal,  nevertheless ;  and  then,  if 
he  had  Mr.  Johnson's  power  as  a  logician,  he  might 
claim  to  escape  all  penalty  by  pleading  that  when 
the  law  said  should  not  it  meant  could  not,  and 
therefore  he  had  not.  If  a  four  years'  war,  if  a 
half  million  lives,  and  if  a  debt  which  is  counted 
by  the  thousand  million  are  not  satisfactory  proofs 
that  somebody  did  contrive  to  secede  practically, 
whatever  the  theoretic  right  may  have  been,  then 
nothing  that  ought  not  to  be  done  ever  has  been 
done.  We  do  not,  however,  consider  the  question 
as  to  whether  the  Rebel  States  were  constitution 
ally,  or  in  the  opinion  of  any  political  organization, 
out  of  the  Union  or  not  as  of  the  least  practical 
importance  ;  for  we  have  never  known  an  instance 
in  which  any  party  has  retreated  into  the  thickets 
and  swamps  of  constitutional  interpretation,  where 
it  had  the  least  chance  of  maintaining  its  ground 
in  the  open  field  of  common  sense  or  against 
the  pressure  of  popular  will.  The  practical  fact 
is,  that  the  will  of  the  majority,  or  the  national 
necessity  for  the  time  being,  has  always  been  con 
stitutional  ;  which  is  only  as  much  as  to  say  that 
the  Convention  of  1787  was  not  wholly  made  up  of 
inspired  prophets,  who  could  provide  beforehand 
for  every  possible  contingency.  The  doctrine  of  a 
strict  and  even  pettifogging  interpretation  of  the 
Constitution  had  its  rise  among  men  who  looked 


266  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

upon  that  instrument  as  a  treaty,  and  at  a  time 
when  the  conception  of  a  national  power  which 
should  receive  that  of  the  States  into  its  stream  as 
tributary  was  something  which  had  entered  the 
head  of  only  here  and  there  a  dreamer.  The  theo 
rists  of  the  Virginia  school  would  have  dammed  up 
and  diverted  the  force  of  each  State  into  a  narrow 
channel  of  its  own,  with  its  little  saw-mill  and  its 
little  grist-mill  for  local  needs,  instead  of  letting  it 
follow  the  slopes  of  the  continental  water-shed  to 
swell  the  volume  of  one  great  current  ample  for 
the  larger  uses  and  needful  for  the  higher  civiliza 
tion  of  all.  That  there  should  always  be  a  school 
who  interpret  the  Constitution  by  its  letter  is  a 
good  thing,  as  interposing  a  check  to  hasty  or  par 
tial  action,  and  gaining  time  for  ample  discussion  ; 
but  that  in  the  end  we  should  be  governed  by  its 
spirit,  living  and  operative  in  the  energies  of  an 
advancing  people,  is  a  still  better  thing  ;  since  the 
levels  and  shore-lines  of  politics  are  no  more  sta 
tionary  than  those  of  continents,  and  the  ship  of 
state  would  in  time  be  left  aground  far  inland,  to 
long  in  vain  for  that  open  sea  which  is  the  only 
pathway  to  fortune  and  to  glory. 

Equally  idle  with  the  claim  that  the  Union  party 
is  foreclosed  from  now  dealing  with  the  Rebel 
States  as  seceded,  because  four  years  ago  it  de 
clared  that  they  had  no  right  to  secede,  is  the  as 
sertion  that  the  object  of  the  war  was  proclaimed 
to  be  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the  Con 
stitution  as  they  were.  Even  were  we  to  admit 
that  1861  is  the  same  thing  as  1866,  the  question 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTldN.     267 

comes  back  again  to  precisely  the  point  that  is  at 
issue  between  the  President  and  Congress,  namely, 
What  is  the  wisest  way  of  restoring  the  Union  ?  for 
which  both  profess  themselves  equally  anxious. 
As  for  the  Constitution,  we  cannot  have  that  as  it 
was,  but  only  as  its  frainers  hoped  it  would  be, 
with  its  one  weak  and  wicked  element  excluded. 
But  as  to  Union,  are  we  in  favor  of  a  Union  in 
form  or  in  fact  ?  of  a  Union  on  the  map  and  in  our 
national  style  merely,  or  one  of  ideas,  interests,  and 
aspirations  ?  If  we  cannot  have  the  latter,  the  for 
mer  is  a  delusion  and  a  snare  ;  and  the  strength  of 
the  nation  would  be  continually  called  away  from 
prosperous  toil  to  be  wasted  in  holding  a  wolf  by 
the  ears,  which  would  still  be  a  wolf,  and  known 
by  all  our  enemies  for  such,  though  we  called 
heaven  and  earth  to  witness,  in  no  matter  how 
many  messages  or  resolves,  that  the  innocent  crea 
ture  was  a  lamb.  That  somebody  has  a  right  to 
dictate  some  kind  of  terms  is  admitted  by  Mr. 
Johnson's  own  repeated  action  in  the  matter ;  but 
who  that  somebody  should  be,  whether  a  single 
man,  of  whose  discretion  even  his  own  partisans 
are  daily  becoming  more  doubtful,  or  the  imme 
diate  representatives  of  that  large  majority  of  the 
States  and  of  the  people  who  for  the  last  five  years 
have  been  forced  against  their  will  to  represent  and 
to  be  the  United  States,  is  certainly  too  grave  an 
affair  to  be  settled  by  that  single  man  himself. 

We  have  seen  to  what  extremes  the  party  calling 
itself  Conservative  has  hinted  its  willingness  to  go, 
under  the  plea  of  restored  Union,  but  with  the  ob- 


268  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

ject  of  regained  power.  At  Philadelphia,  they  went 
as  far  as  they  publicly  dared  in  insinuating  that 
the  South  would  be  justified  in  another  rebellion, 
and  their  journals  have  more  than  once  prompted 
the  President  to  violent  measures,  which  would  as 
certainly  be  his  ruin  as  they  would  lead  to  incalcu 
lable  public  disaster.  The  President  himself  has 
openly  announced  something  like  a  design  of  for 
cibly  suppressing  a  Congress  elected  by  the  same 
votes  and  secured  by  the  same  guaranties  that 
elected  him  to  his  place  and  secure  him  in  it,  —  a 
Congress  whose  validity  he  has  acknowledged  by 
sending  in  his  messages  to  it,  by  signing  its  bills, 
and  by  drawing  his  pay  under  its  vote  ;  and  yet 
thinking  men  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  doubt  the 
propriety  of  leaving  the  gravest  measure  that  ever 
yet  came  up  for  settlement  by  the  country  to  a 
party  and  a  man  so  reckless  as  these  have  shown 
themselves  to  be.  Mr.  Johnson  talks  of  the  dan 
ger  of  centralization,  and  repeats  the  old  despotic 
fallacy  of  many  tyrants  being  worse  than  one,  —  a 
fallacy  originally  invented,  and  ever  since  repeated, 
as  a  slur  upon  democracy,  but  which  is  a  palpable 
absurdity  when  the  people  who  are  to  be  tyran 
nized  over  have  the  right  of  displacing  their  ty 
rants  every  two  years.  The  true  many-headed  ty 
rant  is  the  Mob,  that  part  of  the  deliberative  body 
of  a  nation  which  Mr.  Johnson,  with  his  Southern 
notions  of  popular  government,  has  been  vainly 
seeking,  that  he  might  pay  court  to  it,  from  the 
seaboard  to  St.  Louis,  but  which  hardly  exists,  we 
are  thankful  to  say,  as  a  constituent  body,  in  any 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     269 

part  of  the  Northern  States  outside  the  city  of  New 
York. 

Mr.  Seward,  with  that  playfulness  which  sits 
upon  him  so  gracefully,  and  which  draws  its  re 
sources  from  a  reading  so  extensive  that  not  even 
John  Gilpin  has  escaped  its  research,  puts  his 
argument  to  the  people  in  a  form  where  the  So- 
cratic  and  arithmetic  methods  are  neatly  combined, 
and  asks,  "  How  many  States  are  there  in  the  Un 
ion  ?  "  He  himself  answers  his  own  question  for 
an  audience  among  whom  it  might  have  been  diffi 
cult  to  find  any  political  adherent  capable  of  so  ar 
duous  a  solution,  by  asking  another,  "  Thirty-six  ?  " 
Then  he  goes  on  to  say  that  there  is  a  certain 
party  which  insists  that  the  number  shall  be  less 
by  ten,  and  ends  by  the  clincher,  "  Now  how  many 
stars  do  you  wish  to  see  in  your  flag  ?  "  The  re 
sult  of  some  of  Mr.  Johnson's  harangues  was  so 
often  a  personal  collision,  in  which  the  more  ardent 
on  both  sides  had  an  opportunity  to  see  any  num 
ber  of  new  constellations,  that  this  astronomical 
view  of  the  case  must  have  struck  the  audience 
rather  by  its  pertinence  than  its  novelty.  But  in 
the  argument  of  the  Secretary,  as  in  that  of  the 
President,  there  is  a  manifest  confusion  of  logic, 
and  something  very  like  a  petitio  principii.  We 
might  answer  Mr.  Seward's  question  with,  "  As 
many  fixed  stars  as  you  please,  but  no  more  shoot 
ing  stars  with  any  consent  of  ours."  But  really 
this  matter  is  of  more  interest  to  heralds  of  arms 
than  to  practical  men.  The  difference  between 
Congress  and  the  President  is  not,  as  Mr.  Seward 


270  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

would  insinuate,  that  Congress  or  anybody  else 
wishes  to  keep  the  ten  States  out,  but  that  the 
Radical  party  (we  cheerfully  accept  our  share  in 
the  opprobrium  of  the  name)  insists  that  they  shall 
come  in  on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality  with  the 
rest ;  while  the  President  would  reward  them  for 
rebellion  by  giving  them  an  additional  weight  of 
nearly  one  half  in  the  national  councils.  The  cry 
of  "  Taxation  without  representation  "  is  foolish 
enough  as  raised  by  the  Philadelphia  Convention, 
for  do  we  not  tax  every  foreigner  that  comes  to  us 
while  he  is  in  process  of  becoming  a  citizen  and  a 
voter  ?  But  under  the  Johnsonian  theory  of  recon 
struction,  we  shall  leave  a  population  which  is  now 
four  millions  not  only  taxed  without  representation, 
but  doomed  to  be  so  forever  without  any  reason 
able  hope  of  relief.  The  true  point  is  not  as  to  the 
abstract  merits  of  universal  suffrage  (though  we 
believe  it  the  only  way  toward  an  enlightened 
democracy  and  the  only  safeguard  of  popular  gov 
ernment),  but  as  to  whether  we  shall  leave  the 
freedmen  without  the  only  adequate  means  of  self- 
defence.  And  however  it  may  be  now,  the  twenty- 
six  States  certainly  were  the  Union  when  they  ac 
cepted  the  aid  of  these  people  and  pledged  the 
faith  of  the  government  to  their  protection.  Ja 
maica,  at  the  end  of  nearly  thirty  years  since  eman 
cipation,  shows  us  how  competent  former  masters 
are  to  accomplish  the  elevation  of  their  liberated 
slaves,  even  though  their  own  interests  would 
prompt  them  to  it.  Surely  it  is  a  strange  plea  to 
be  effective  in  a  democratic  country,  that  we  owe 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     271 

these  people  nothing  because  they  cannot  help 
themselves ;  as  if  governments  were  instituted  for 
the  care  of  the  strong  only.  The  argument  against 
their  voting  which  is  based  upon  their  ignorance 
strikes  us  oddly  in  the  mouths  of  those  whose  own 
hope  of  votes  lies  in  the  ignorance,  or,  what  is 
often  worse,  the  prejudice,  of  the  voters.  Besides, 
we  do  not  demand  that  the  seceding  States  should 
at  once  confer  the  right  of  suffrage  on  the  blacks, 
but  only  that  they  should  give  them  the  same 
chance  to  attain  it,  and  the  same  inducement  to 
make  themselves  worthy  of  it,  as  to  every  one  else. 
The  answer  that  they  have  not  the  right  in  some  of 
the  Northern  States  may  be  a  reproach  to  the  in 
telligence  of  those  States,  but  has  no  relevancy  if 
made  to  the  general  government.  It  is  not  with 
these  States  that  we  are  making  terms  or  claim  any 
right  to  make  them,  nor  is  the  number  of  their 
non-voting  population  so  large  as  to  make  them 
dangerous,  or  the  prejudice  against  them  so  great 
that  it  may  not  safely  be  left  to  time  and  common 
sense.  It  was  not  till  all  men  were  made  equal  be 
fore  the  law,  and  the  fact  recognized  that  govern 
ment  is  something  that  does  not  merely  preside 
over,  but  reside  in,  the  rights  of  all,  that  even 
white  peasants  were  enabled  to  rise  out  of  their 
degradation,  and  to  become  the  strength  instead  of 
the  danger  of  France.  Nothing  short  of  such  a  re 
form  could  have  conquered  the  contempt  and  aver 
sion  with  which  the  higher  classes  looked  upon  the 
emancipated  serf.  Norman-French  literature  reeks 
with  the  outbreak  of  this  feeling  toward  the  ances- 


272  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

tors,  whether  Jews  or  villeins,  of  the  very  men  who 
are  now  the  aristocracy  of  South  Carolina,  —  a  feel 
ing  as  intense,  as  nauseous  in  its  expression,  and  as 
utterly  groundless,  as  that  against  the  negro  now. 
We  are  apt,  it  would  seem,  a  little  to  confound  the 
meaning  of  the  two  terms  government  and  self-gov 
ernment^  and  the  principles  on  which  they  respec 
tively  rest.  If  the  latter  has  its  rights,  the  former 
has  quite  as  plainly  its  duties ;  and  one  of  them 
certainly  is  to  see  that  no  freedom  should  be  al 
lowed  to  the  parts  which  would  endanger  the  safety 
of  the  whole.  An  occasion  calling  for  the  exercise 
of  this  duty  is  forced  upon  us  now,  and  we  must  be 
equal  to  it.  Self-government,  in  any  rightful  defi 
nition  of  it,  can  hardly  be  stretched  so  far  that  it 
will  cover,  as  the  late  Rebels  and  their  Northern 
advocates  contend,  the  right  to  dispose  absolutely 
of  the  destinies  of  four  millions  of  people,  the  allies 
and  hearty  friends  of  the  United  States,  without 
allowing  them  any  voice  in  the  matter. 

It  is  alleged  by  reckless  party  orators  that  those 
who  ask  for  guaranties  before  readmitting  the  se 
ceded  States  wish  to  treat  them  with  harshness,  if 
not  with  cruelty.  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens  is  tri 
umphantly  quoted,  as  if  his  foolish  violence  fairly 
represented  the  political  opinions  of  the  Union 
party.  They  might  as  well  be  made  responsible 
for  his  notions  of  finance.  We  are  quite  willing  to 
let  Mr.  Stevens  be  paired  off  with  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham,  and  to  believe  that  neither  is  a  fair  expo 
nent  of  the  average  sentiment  of  his  party.  Call 
ing  names  should  be  left  to  children,  with  whom, 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     273 

as  with  too  large  a  class  of  our  political  speakers, 
it  seems  to  pass  for  argument.  We  believe  it 
never  does  so  with  the  people ;  certainly  not  with 
the  intelligent,  who  make  a  majority  among  them, 
unless  (as  in  the  case  of  "  Copperhead  ")  there 
be  one  of  those  hardly-to-be-defined  realities  be 
hind  the  name  which  they  are  so  quick  to  detect. 
We  cannot  say  that  we  have  any  great  sympathy 
for  the  particular  form  of  mildness  which  discov 
ers  either  a  "martyr,"  or  a  "pure -hearted  pa 
triot,"  or  even  a  "lofty  statesman,"  in  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  Davis,  the  latter  qualification  of  him  having 
been  among  the  discoveries  of  the  London  Times 
when  it  thought  his  side  was  going  to  win ;  but  we 
can  say  that  nothing  has  surprised  us  more,  or 
seemed  to  us  a  more  striking  evidence  of  the  hu 
manizing  influence  of  democracy,  than  the  entire 
absence  of  any  temper  that  could  be  called  revenge 
ful  in  the  people  of  the  North  toward  their  late 
enemies.  If  it  be  a  part  of  that  inconsistent  mix 
ture  of  purely  personal  motives  and  more  than 
legitimate  executive  action  which  Mr.  Johnson  is 
pleased  to  call  his  "policy,"  —  if  it  be  a  part  of 
that  to  treat  the  South  with  all  the  leniency  that  is 
short  of  folly  and  all  the  conciliation  that  is  short 
of  meanness,  —  then  we  were  advocates  of  it  before 
Mr.  Johnson.  While  he  was  yet  only  ruminating 
in  his  vindictive  mind,  sore  with  such  rancor  as 
none  but  a  "  plebeian,"  as  he  used  to  call  himself, 
can  feel  against  his  social  superiors,  the  only  really 
agrarian  proclamation  ever  put  forth  by  any  legiti 
mate  ruler,  and  which  was  countersigned  by  the 


274  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

now  suddenly  "  conservative "  Secretary  of  State, 
we  were  in  favor  of  measures  that  should  look 
to  governing  the  South  by  such  means  as  the 
South  itself  afforded,  or  could  be  made  to  afford. 
It  is  true  that,  as  a  part  of  the  South,  we  reck 
oned  the  colored  people  bound  to  us  by  every 
tie  of  honor,  justice,  and  principle,  but  we  never 
wished  to  wink  out  of  sight  the  natural  feelings  of 
men  suddenly  deprived  of  what  they  conceived  to 
be  their  property,  —  of  men,  too,  whom  we  re 
spected  for  their  courage  and  endurance  even  in  a 
bad  cause.  But  we  believed  then,  as  we  believe 
now,  and  as  events  have  justified  us  in  believing, 
that  there  could  be  no  graver  error  than  to  flatter 
our  own  feebleness  and  uncertainty  by  calling  it 
magnanimity,  —  a  virtue  which  does  not  scorn  the 
society  of  patience  and  prudence,  but  which  cannot 
subsist  apart  from  courage  and  fidelity  to  principle. 
A  people  so  boyish  and  conceited  as  the  Southern 
ers  have  always  shown  themselves  to  be,  unwilling 
ever  to  deal  with  facts,  but  only  with  their  own 
imagination  of  them,  would  be  sure  to  interpret 
indecision  as  cowardice,  if  not  as  an  unwilling 
tribute  to  that  superiority  of  which  men  who 
really  possess  it  are  the  last  to  boast.  They  have 
learned  nothing  from  the  war  but  to  hate  the 
men  who  subdued  them,  and  to  misinterpret  and 
misrepresent  the  causes  of  their  subduing  ;  and 
even  now,  when  a  feeling  has  been  steadily  growing 
in  the  rest  of  the  country  for  the  last  nine  months 
deeper  and  more  intense  than  any  during  the  war, 
because  mixed  with  an  angry  sense  of  unexpected 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     275 

and  treacherous  disappointment,  instead  of  setting 
their  strength  to  the  rebuilding  of  their  shat 
tered  social  fabric,  they  are  waiting,  as  they  waited 
four  years  ago,  for  a  division  in  the  North  which 
will  never  come,  and  hailing  in  Andrew  Johnson 
a  scourge  of  God  who  is  to  avenge  them  in  the 
desolation  of  our  cities !  Is  it  not  time  that  these 
men  were  transplanted  at  least  into  the  nineteenth 
century,  and,  if  they  cannot  be  suddenly  Ameri 
canized,  made  to  understand  something  of  the  coun 
try  which  was  too  good  for  them,  even  though  at 
the  cost  of  a  rude  shock  to  their  childish  self-con 
ceit?  Is  that  a  properly  reconstructed  Union  in 
the  Southern  half  of  which  no  Northern  man's  life 
is  safe  except  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  conscience,  his 
freedom  of  speech,  of  everything  but  his  love  of 
money?  To  our  minds  the  providential  purpose 
of  this  intervention  of  Mr.  Johnson  in  our  affairs 
is  to  warn  us  of  the  solemn  duty  that  lies  upon  us 
in  this  single  crisis  of  our  history,  when  the  chance 
is  offered  us  of  stamping  our  future  with  greatness 
or  contempt,  and  which  requires  something  like 
statesmanship  in  the  people  themselves,  as  well  as 
in  those  who  act  for  them.  The  South  insisted 
upon  war,  and  has  had  enough  of  it ;  it  is  now  our 
turn  to  insist  that  the  peace  we  have  conquered 
shall  be  so  settled  as  to  make  war  impossible  for 
the  future. 

But  how  is  this  to  be  done  ?  The  road  to  it  is  a 
very  plain  one.  We  shall  gain  all  we  want  if  we 
make  the  South  really  prosperous ;  for  with  pros 
perity  will  come  roads,  schools,  churches,  printing- 


276  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

presses,  industry,  thrift,  intelligence,  and  security 
of  life  and  property.  Hitherto  the  prosperity  of 
the  South  has  been  factitious ;  it  has  been  a  pros 
perity  of  the  Middle  Ages,  keeping  the  many  poor 
that  a  few  might  show  their  wealth  in  the  barba 
rism  of  showy  equipages  and  numerous  servants,  and 
spend  in  foreign  cities  the  wealth  that  should  have 
built  up  civilization  and  made  way  for  refinement 
at  home.  There  were  no  public  libraries,  no  col 
leges  worthy  of  the  name ;  there  was  no  art,  no 
science,  —  still  worse,  no  literature  but  Simms's : 
there  was  no  desire  for  them.  We  do  not  say  it  in 
reproach ;  we  are  simply  stating  a  fact,  and  are 
quite  aware  that  the  North  is  far  behind  Europe  in 
these  things.  But  we  are  not  behind  her  in  the 
value  we  set  upon  them ;  are  even  before  her  in  the 
price  we  are  willing  to  pay  for  them,  and  are  in  the 
way  to  get  them.  The  South  was  not  in  that  way  ; 
could  not  get  into  it,  indeed,  so  long  as  the  labor 
that  made  wealth  was  cut  off  from  any  interest  in 
its  expenditure,  nor  had  any  goal  for  such  hopes  as 
soared  away  from  the  dreary  level  of  its  lifelong 
drudgery  but  in  the  grave  and  the  world  beyond 
it.  We  are  not  blind  to  what  may  be  said  on 
the  other  side,  nor  to  that  fatal  picturesqueness, 
so  attractive  to  sentimental  minds  and  so  melan 
choly  to  thoughtful  ones,  which  threw  a  charm  over 
certain  exceptional  modes  of  Southern  life  among 
the  older  families  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina. 
But  there  are  higher  and  manlier  kinds  of  beauty, 
—  barer  and  sterner,  some  would  call  them,  —  with 
less  softly  rounded  edges,  certainly,  than  the  Wolf's 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     277 

Crag  picturesqueness,  which  carries  the  mind  with 
pensive  indolence  toward  the  past,  instead  of  stir 
ring  it  with  a  sense  of  present  life,  or  bracing  it 
with  the  hope  of  future  opportunity,  and  which  at 
once  veils  and  betrays  the  decay  of  ancient  civiliza 
tions.  Unless  life  is  arranged  for  the  mere  benefit 
of  the  novelist,  what  right  had  these  bits  of  last- 
century  Europe  here?  Even  the  virtues  of  the 
South  were  some  of  them  anachronisms ;  and  even 
those  that  were  not  existed  side  by  side  with  an 
obtuseness  of  moral  sense  that  could  make  a  hero 
of  Semmes,  and  a  barbarism  that  could  starve  pri 
soners  by  the  thousand. 

Some  philosophers,  to  be  sure,  plead  with  us  that 
the  Southerners  are  remarkable  for  their  smaller 
hands  and  feet,  though  so  good  an  observer  as 
Thackeray  pronounced  this  to  be  true  of  the  whole 
American  people ;  but  really  we  cannot  think  such 
arguments  as  this  will  give  any  pause  to  the  inev 
itable  advance  of  that  democracy,  somewhat  rude 
and  raw  as  yet,  a  clumsy  boy-giant,  and  not  too 
well  mannered,  whose  office  it  nevertheless  is  to 
make  the  world  ready  for  the  true  second  coming 
of  Christ  in  the  practical  supremacy  of  his  doc 
trine,  and  its  incarnation,  after  so  many  centuries 
of  burial,  in  the  daily  lives  of  men.  We  have  been 
but  dimly,  if  at  all,  conscious  of  the  greatness  of 
our  errand,  while  we  have  already  accomplished  a 
part  of  it  in  bringing  together  the  people  of  all 
nations  to  see  each  other  no  longer  as  aliens  or  ene 
mies,  but  as  equal  partakers  of  the  highest  earthly 
dignity,  —  a  common  manhood.  We  have  been 


278  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

forced,  whether  we  would  or  no,  first  to  endure, 
then  to  tolerate,  and  at  last  to  like  men  from  all 
the  four  corners  of  the  world,  and  to  see  that  each 
added  a  certain  virtue  of  his  own  to  that  precious 
amalgam  of  which  we  are  in  due  time  to  fashion  a 
great  nation.  We  are  now  brought  face  to  face 
with  our  duty  toward  one  of  those  dusky  races  that 
have  long  sat  in  the  shadow  of  the  world ;  we  are 
to  be  taught  to  see  the  Christ  disguised  also  in 
these,  and  to  find  at  last  that  a  part  of  our  salva 
tion  is  inextricably  knit  up  with  the  necessity  of 
doing  them  justice  and  leading  them  to  the  light. 
This  is  no  sentimental  fancy ;  it  is  written  in  plain 
characters  upon  the  very  surface  of  things.  We 
have  done  everything  to  get  rid  of  the  negro ;  and 
the  more  we  did,  the  more  he  was  thrust  upon  us  in 
every  possible  relation  of  life  and  aspect  of  thought. 
One  thing  we  have  not  tried,  —  a  spell  before  which 
he  would  vanish  away  from  us  at  once,  by  taking 
quietly  the  place,  whatever  it  be,  to  which  Nature 
has  assigned  him.  We  have  not  acknowledged  him 
as  our  brother.  Till  we  have  done  so  he  will  be 
always  at  our  elbow,  a  perpetual  discomfort  to  him 
self  and  us.  Now  this  one  thing  that  will  give  us 
rest  is  precisely  what  the  South,  if  we  leave  the 
work  of  reconstruction  in  their  hands,  will  make  it 
impossible  for  us  to  do ;  and  yet  it  must  be  done 
ere  America  can  penetrate  the  Southern  States. 
It  is  for  this  reason,  and  not  with  any  desire  of  es 
tablishing  a  standing  garrison  of  four  hundred 
thousand  loyal  voters  in  the  South,  that  we  insist 
on  the  absolute  necessity  of  justice  to  the  black 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     279 

man.  Not  that  we  have  not  a  perfect  right  to  de 
mand  the  reception  of  such  a  garrison,  but  we  wish 
the  South  to  govern  itself ;  and  this  it  will  never 
be  able  to  do,  it  will  be  governed  as  heretofore  by 
its  circumstances,  if  we  allow  it  to  replace  slavery 
by  the  disenfranchisement  of  color,  and  to  make  an 
Ireland  out  of  what  should  be  the  most  productive, 
populous,  and  happy  part  of  the  Union.  We  may 
evade  this  manifest  duty  of  ours  from  indolence,  or 
indifference,  or  selfish  haste ;  but  if  there  is  one 
truth  truer  than  another,  it  is  that  no  man  or 
nation  ever  neglected  a  duty  that  was  not  sooner  or 
later  laid  upon  them  in  a  heavier  form,  to  be  done 
at  a  dearer  rate.  Neither  man  nor  nation  can  find 
rest  short  of  their  highest  convictions. 

This  is  something  that  altogether  transcends  any 
partisan  politics.  It  is  of  comparatively  little  con 
sequence  to  us  whether  Congress  or  the  President 
carry  the  day,  provided  only  that  America  tri 
umph.  That  is,  after  all,  the  real  question.  On 
which  side  is  the  future  of  the  country,  —  the  fu 
ture  that  we  cannot  escape  if  we  would,  but  which 
our  action  may  embarrass  and  retard  ?  If  we  had 
looked  upon  the  war  as  a  mere  trial  of  physical 
strength  between  two  rival  sections  of  the  country, 
we  should  have  been  the  first  to  oppose  it,  as  a 
wicked  waste  of  treasure  and  blood.  But  it  was 
something  much  deeper  than  this,  and  so  the  peo 
ple  of  the  North  instinctively  recognized  it  to  be 
from  the  first,  —  instinctively,  we  say,  and  not 
deliberately  at  first ;  but  before  it  was  over,  their 
understandings  had  grasped  its  true  meaning,  as  an 


280  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

effort  of  the  ideal  America,  which  was  to  them  half 
a  dream  and  half  a  reality,  to  cast  off  an  alien 
element.  It  was  this  ideal  something,  not  the  less 
strongly  felt  because  vaguely  defined,  that  made 
them  eager,  as  only  what  is  above  sordid  motives 
can,  to  sacrifice  all  that  they  had  and  all  that  they 
were  rather  than  fail  in  its  attainment.  And  it  is  to 
men  not  yet  cooled  from  the  white-heat  of  this  pas 
sionate  mood  that  Mr.  Johnson  comes  with  his  pal 
try  offer  of  "  my  policy,"  in  exchange  for  the  logical 
consequences  of  all  this  devotion  and  this  sacrifice. 
What  is  any  one  man's  policy,  and  especially  any 
one  weak  man's  policy,  against  the  settled  drift  of  a 
nation's  conviction,  conscience,  and  instinct?  The 
American  people  had  made  up  not  only  their  minds, 
but  their  hearts,  and  no  man  who  knows  anything 
of  human  nature  could  doubt  what  their  decision 
would  be.  They  wanted  only  a  sufficient  obstacle 
to  awaken  them  to  a  full  consciousness  of  what  was 
at  stake,  and  that  obstacle  the  obstinate  vanity  of 
the  President  and  the  blindness  or  resentment  of 
his  prime  minister  have  supplied.  They  are  fully 
resolved  to  have  the  great  stake  they  played  for  and 
won,  and  that  stake  was  the  Americanization  of 
all  America,  nothing  more  and  nothing  less.  Mr. 
Johnson  told  us  in  New  York,  with  so  profound  a 
misconception  of  the  feeling  of  the  Northern  States 
as  was  only  possible  to  a  vulgar  mind,  and  that 
mind  a  Southern  one,  that  the  South  had  set  up 
slavery  as  its  stake,  and  lost,  and  that  now  the 
North  was  in  danger  of  losing  the  stake  it  had 
risked  on  reconstruction  in  the  national  debt.  Mr. 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     281 

Johnson  is  still,  it  would  seem,  under  that  delusion 
which  led  the  South  into  the  war ;  namely,  that  it 
was  that  section  of  the  country  which  was  the  chief 
element  in  its  wealth  and  greatness.  But  no  North 
ern  man,  who,  so  long  as  he  lives,  will  be  obliged 
to  pay  his  fine  of  taxes  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
which  was  forced  upon  us  by  the  South,  is  likely  to 
think  it  very  hard  that  the  South  should  be  com 
pelled  to  furnish  its  share  toward  the  common  bur 
den,  or  will  be  afraid  that  the  loyal  States,  whose 
urgent  demands  compelled  a  timid  Congress  at  last 
to  impose  direct  taxes,  will  be  unable  to  meet  their 
obligations  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past. 

We  say  again  that  the  questions  before  the 
country  are  not  to  be  decided  on  any  grounds  of 
personal  prejudice  or  partiality.  We  are  far  from 
thinking  that  Congress  has  in  all  respects  acted  as 
became  the  dignity  of  its  position,  or  seized  all  the 
advantage  of  the  opportunity.  They  have  seemed 
to  us  sometimes  afraid  of  coming  before  the  people 
with  a  direct,  frank,  and  simple  statement  of  what 
was  not  only  the  best  thing  that  could  be  done,  but 
the  one  thing  that  must  be  done.  They  were 
afraid  of  the  people,  and  did  not  count  securely, 
as  they  should  have  done,  on  that  precious  seeing 
which  four  years  of  gradually  wakening  moral  sense 
had  lent  to  the  people's  eyes.  They  should  not 
have  shrunk  from  taking  upon  themselves  and  their 
party  all  the  odium  of  being  in  the  right ;  of  being 
on  the  side  of  justice,  humanity,  and  of  the  Amer 
ica  which  is  yet  to  be,  whoever  may  fear  to  help 
and  whoever  may  try  to  hinder.  The  vulgar  ciy 


282  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

would  be  against  them,  at  any  rate,  and  they  might 
reckon  on  being  accused  of  principles  which  they 
thought  it  prudent  to  conceal,  whether  they  com 
mitted  their  party  to  them  or  not.  With  those  who 
have  the  strong  side,  as  they  always  do  who  have 
conscience  for  an  ally,  a  bold  policy  is  the  only 
prosperous  one.  It  is  always  wisest  to  accept  in 
advance  all  the  logical  consequences  that  can  be 
drawn  from  the  principles  we  profess,  and  to  make 
a  stand  on  the  extremest  limits  of  our  position.  It 
will  be  time  enough  to  fall  back  when  we  are 
driven  out.  In  taking  a  half-way  position  at  first, 
we  expose  ourselves  to  all  the  disadvantage  and 
discouragement  of  seeming  to  fight  on  a  retreat, 
and  cut  ourselves  off  from  our  supplies.  For  the 
supplies  of  a  party  which  is  contending  for  a  clear 
principle,  and  not  for  its  own  immediate  success, 
are  always  drawn  from  the  highest  moral  ground 
included  in  its  lines.  We  are  not  speaking  here 
of  abstractions  or  wire -drawn  corollaries,  but  of 
those  plain  ethical  axioms  which  every  man  may 
apprehend,  and  which  are  so  closely  involved  in 
the  question  now  before  the  country  for  decision. 
We  at  least  could  lose  nothing  by  letting  the  peo 
ple  know  exactly  what  we  meant ;  for  we  meant 
nothing  that  could  not  claim  the  suffrage  of  sin 
cere  democracy,  of  prudent  statesmanship,  or  of 
jealousy  for  the  nation's  honor  and  safety.  That 
the  Republican  party  should  be  broken  up  is  of 
comparatively  little  consequence ;  for  it  would  be 
merged  in  the  stronger  party  of  those  who  are  re 
solved  that  no  by-questions,  no  fallacies  of  gen- 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     283 

erosity  to  the  vanquished,  shall  turn  it  aside  from 
the  one  fixed  purpose  it  has  at  heart ;  that  the  war 
shall  not  have  been  in  vain ;  and  that  the  Rebel 
States,  when  they  return  to  the  Union,  shall  return 
to  it  as  an  addition  of  power,  and  under  such  terms 
as  that  they  must,  and  not  merely  may,  be  fixed 
there.  Let  us  call  things  by  their  right  names, 
and  keep  clearly  in  view  both  the  nature  of  the 
thing  vanquished  and  of  the  war  in  which  we  were 
victors.  When  men  talk  of  generosity  toward  a 
suppliant  foe,  they  entirely  forget  what  that  foe 
really  was.  To  the  people  of  the  South  no  one 
thinks  of  being  unmerciful.  But  they  were  only 
the  blind  force  wielded  by  our  real  enemy,  —  an 
enemy,  prophesy  what  smooth  things  you  will,  with 
whom  we  can  never  be  reconciled  and  whom  it 
would  be  madness  to  spare.  And  this  enemy  was 
not  any  body  of  kindred  people,  but  that  principle 
of  evil  fatally  repugnant  to  our  institutions,  which, 
flinging  away  the  hilt  of  its  broken  weapon,  is  now 
cheating  itself  with  the  hope  that  it  can  forge  a 
new  one  of  the  soft  and  treacherous  metal  of 
Northern  disloyalty.  The  war  can  in  no  respect 
be  called  a  civil  war,  though  that  was  what  the 
South,  in  its  rash  ignorance,  threatened  the  North 
with.  It  was  as  much  a  war  between  two  different 
nations,  and  the  geographical  line  was  as  distinctly 
drawn  between  them,  as  in  the  late  war  between 
North  and  South  Germany.  They  had  been  living, 
it  is  true,  under  the  same  government,  but  the 
South  regarded  this  as  implying  no  tie  more  in 
timate  than  that  which  brought  the  representatives 


284  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  Prussia  and  Austria  together  in  the  Frankfort 
Diet.  We  have  the  same  right  to  impose  terms 
and  to  demand  guaranties  that  Prussia  has,  that 
the  victor  always  has. 

Many  people  are  led  to  favor  Mr.  Johnson's  pol 
icy  because  they  dislike  those  whom  they  please  to 
call  the  "  Republican  leaders."  If  ever  a  party  ex 
isted  that  had  no  recognized  leaders,  it  is  the  Re 
publican  party.  Composed  for  the  last  five  years, 
at  least,  of  men  who,  themselves  professing  all 
shades  of  opinion,  were  agreed  only  in  a  determi 
nation  to  sustain  the  honor  and  preserve  the  ex 
istence  of  the  nation,  it  has  been  rather  a  majority 
than  a  party,  employing  the  legislative  machine  to 
carry  out  the  purposes  of  public  opinion.  The 
people  were  the  true  inspirers  of  all  its  mea 
sures,  and  accordingly  it  was  left  without  a  definite 
policy  the  moment  the  mere  politicians  in  its  ranks 
became  doubtful  as  to  what  direction  the  pop 
ular  mind  would  take.  It  had  no  recognized  leader 
either  in  the  House  or  Senate  just  at  the  time  when 
it  first  stood  in  need  of  such.  The  majority  of 
its  representatives  there  tried  in  vain  to  cast  any 
political  horoscope  by  which  it  would  be  safe  for 
them  individually  to  be  guided.  They  showed  the 
same  distrust  of  the  sound  judgment  of  the  people 
and  their  power  to  grasp  principles  that  they 
showed  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  at  every 
discouraging  moment  while  it  was  going  on.  Now 
that  the  signs  of  the  times  show  unmistakably  to 
what  the  popular  mind  is  making  itself  up,  they 
have  once  more  a  policy,  if  we  may  call  that  so 


THE  SE  WARD-JOHNS  ON  REACTION.     285 

which  is  only  a  calculation  of  what  it  would  be 
"  safe  to  go  before  the  people  with,"  as  they  call  it. 
It  is  always  safe  to  go  before  them  with  plain  prin 
ciples  of  right,  and  with  the  conclusions  that  must 
be  drawn  from  them  by  common  sense,  though  this 
is  what  too  many  of  our  public  men  can  never  un 
derstand.  Now  joining  a  Know-Nothing  "  lodge," 
now  hanging  on  the  outskirts  of  a  Fenian  "  circle," 
they  mistake  the  momentary  eddies  of  popular 
whimsy  for  the  great  current  that  sets  always 
strongly  in  one  direction  through  the  life  and  his 
tory  of  the  nation.  Is  it,  as  foreigners  assert,  the 
fatal  defect  of  our  system  to  fill  our  highest  offices 
with  men  whose  views  in  politics  are  bounded  by 
the  next  district  election  ?  When  we  consider  how 
noble  the  science  is,  —  nobler  even  than  astronomy, 
for  it  deals  with  the  mutual  repulsions  and  attrac 
tions,  not  of  inert  masses,  but  of  bodies  endowed 
with  thought  and  will,  calculates  moral  forces,  and 
reckons  the  orbits  of  God's  purposes  toward  man 
kind,  —  we  feel  sure  that  it  is  to  find  nobler  teach 
ers  and  students,  and  to  find  them  even  here. 

There  is  another  class  of  men  who  are  honestly 
drawn  toward  the  policy  of  what  we  are  fain,  for 
want  of  a  more  definite  name,  to  call  the  Presi 
dential  Opposition  party,  by  their  approval  of  the 
lenient  measures  which  they  suppose  to  be  peculiar 
to  it.  But  our  objection  to  the  measures  advocated 
by  the  Philadelphia  Convention,  so  far  as  we  can 
trace  any  definite  shape  amid  the  dust-cloud  of 
words,  is,  not  they  would  treat  the  Rebel  States 
with  moderation,  but  that  they  propose  to  take 


286  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

them  back  on  trust.  We  freely  admit  that  we 
should  have  been  inclined  to  see  more  reasonable 
ness  in  this  course  if  we  had  not  the  examples  of 
Jamaica  and  New  Orleans  before  our  eyes  ;  if  we 
had  not  seen  both  there  and  in  other  instances  with 
which  history  supplies  us,  that  it  is  not  safe  to  leave 
the  settlement  of  such  matters  in  the  hands  of  men 
who  would  be  more  than  human  if  they  had  not  the 
prejudices  and  the  resentments  of  caste.  Here  is 
just  one  of  those  cases  of  public  concern  which  call 
for  the  arbitrament  of  a  cool  and  impartial  third 
party,  —  the  very  office  expected  of  a  popular  gov 
ernment,  —  which  should  as  carefully  abstain  from 
meddling  in  matters  that  may  be  safely  left  to  be 
decided  by  natural  laws  as  it  should  be  prompt  to 
interfere  where  those  laws  would  to  the  general 
detriment  be  inoperative.  It  should  be  remem 
bered  that  self-interest,  though  its  requirements 
may  seem  plain  and  imperative  to  an  unprejudiced 
bystander,  is  something  which  men,  and  even  com 
munities,  are  often  ready  to  sacrifice  at  the  bidding 
of  their  passions,  and  of  none  so  readily  as  their 
pride.  As  for  the  attachment  between  master  and 
slave,  whose  existence  is  sometimes  asseverated  in 
the  face  of  so  many  glaring  facts  to  the  contrary, 
and  on  which  we  are  asked  to  depend  as  something 
stronger  than  written  law,  we  have  very  little  faith 
in  it.  The  system  of  clanship  in  the  Scottish 
Highlands  is  the  strongest  case  to  which  we  can 
appeal  in  modern  times  of  a  truly  patriarchal 
social  order.  In  that,  the  pride  of  the  chief  was 
answered  by  the  willing  devotion  of  the  sept,  and 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     287 

the  two  were  bound  together  as  closely  as  kindred 
blood,  immemorial  tradition,  and  mutual  depend 
ence  could  link  them ;  and  yet,  the  moment  it  be 
came  for  the  interest  of  the  chieftain,  in  whom 
alone  was  the  landed  title,  to  convert  the  mountain 
slopes  into  sheep-walks,  farewell  to  all  consider 
ations  of  ancestral  legend  and  ideal  picturesque- 
ness  !  The  clansmen  were  dispossessed  of  their  lit 
tle  holdings,  and  shipped  off  to  the  colonies  like 
cattle,  by  the  very  in  en  for  whom  they  would  have 
given  their  lives  without  question.  The  relation, 
just  like  that  of  master  and  slave,  or  the  proposed 
one  of  superior  and  dependent,  in  the  South,  had 
become  an  anachronism,  to  preserve  which  would 
have  been  a  vain  struggle  against  that  power  of 
Necessity  which  the  Greeks  revered  as  something 
god-like.  In  our  own  case,  so  far  from  making  it 
for  the  interest  of  the  ruling  classes  at  the  South  to 
elevate  the  condition  of  the  black  man,  the  policy 
of  Mr.  Johnson  offers  them  a  bribe  to  keep  him  in 
a  state  of  hopeless  dependency  and  subjection.  It 
gives  them  more  members  of  Congress  in  propor 
tion  as  they  have  more  unrepresented  inhabitants. 
Mr.  Beecher  asks  us  (and  we  see  no  possible  rea 
son  for  doubting  the  honesty  of  his  opinions,  what 
ever  may  be  their  soundness)  whether  we  are 
afraid  of  the  South,  and  tells  us  that,  if  we  allow 
them  to  govern  us,  we  shall  richly  deserve  it.  It  is 
not  that  we  are  afraid  of,  nor  are  we  in  the  habit 
of  forming  our  opinions  on  any  such  imaginary 
grounds ;  but  we  confess  that  we  are  afraid  of 
committing  an  act  of  national  injustice,  of  national 


288  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

dishonor,  of  national  breach  of  faith,  and  therefore 
of  national  unwisdom  and  weakness.  Moderation 
is  an  excellent  thing  ;  but  taking  things  for  granted 
is  not  moderation,  and  there  may  be  such  a  thing 
as  being  immoderate  in  concession  and  confidence. 
Aristotle  taught  us  long  ago  that  true  moderation 
was  as  far  from  the  too-much  of  blind  passion  on 
the  one  hand  as  from  that  of  equally  blind  luke- 
warmness  on  the  other.  We  have  an  example  of 
wise  reconstructive  policy  in  that  measure  of  the 
Bourbon-restoration  ministry,  which  compensated 
the  returned  emigrants  for  their  confiscated  estates 
by  a  grant  from  the  public  treasury.  And  the 
measure  was  wise,  for  the  reason  that  it  enabled  the 
new  proprietors  and  the  ousted  ones  to  live  as  citi 
zens  of  the  same  country  together  without  mutual 
hatred  and  distrust.  We  do  not  propose  to  com 
pensate  the  slaveholder  for  the  loss  of  his  chattels, 
because  the  cases  are  not  parallel,  and  because  Mr. 
Johnson  no  less  than  we  acknowledges  the  justice 
and  validity  of  their  emancipation.  But  the  situa 
tion  of  the  negro  is  strikingly  parallel  with  that  of 
the  new  holders  of  land  in  France.  As  they  were 
entitled  to  security,  so  he  has  a  right  not  only  to  be 
secured  in  his  freedom,  but  in  the  consequences 
which  legitimately  flow  from  it.  For  it  is  only 
so  that  he  can  be  insured  against  that  feeling  of 
distrust  and  uncertainty  of  the  future  which  will 
prevent  him  from  being  profitable  to  himself,  his 
former  master,  and  the  country.  If  we  sought  a 
parallel  for  Mr.  Johnson's  "  policy,"  we  should  find 
it  in  James  II.,  thinking  his  prerogative  strong 


THE  SEWARD-JOHNSON  REACTION.     289 

enough  to  overcome  the  instincts,  convictions,  and 
fears  of  England. 

However  much  fair-minded  men  may  have  been 
wearied  with  the  backing  and  filling  of  Congress, 
and  their  uncertainty  of  action  on  some  of  the  most 
important  questions  that  have  come  before  them, 
—  however  the  dignity,  and  even  propriety,  of 
their  attitude  toward  Mr.  Johnson  may  be  in  some 
respects  honestly  called  in  question,  —  no  one  who 
has  looked  fairly  at  the  matter  can  pronounce  the 
terms  they  have  imposed  on  the  South  as  condi 
tions  of  restoration  harsh  ones.  The  character  of 
Congress  is  not  before  the  country,  but  simply  the 
character  of  the  plan  they  propose.  For  ourselves, 
we  should  frankly  express  our  disgust  at  the  dem- 
agogism  which  courted  the  Fenians ;  for,  however 
much  we  may  sympathize  with  the  real  wrongs  of 
Ireland,  it  was  not  for  an  American  Congress  to 
declare  itself  in  favor  of  a  movement  which  based 
itself  on  the  claim  of  every  Irish  voter  in  the  coun 
try  to  a  double  citizenship,  in  which  the  adopted 
country  was  made  secondary,  and  which,  directed 
as  it  was  against  a  province  where  Irishmen  are 
put  on  equal  terms  with  every  other  inhabitant, 
and  where  their  own  Church  is  the  privileged  one, 
was  nothing  better  than  burglary  and  murder. 
Whatever  may  be  Mr.  Seward's  faults,  he  was  cer 
tainly  right  in  his  dealing  with  that  matter,  unless 
he  is  to  be  blamed  for  slowness.  But  as  regards 
the  terms  offered  by  Congress  to  the  South,  they 
are  very  far  from  harsh  or  unreasonable ;  they 
are  lamb-like  compared  to  what  we  had  reason  to 


290  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

fear  from  Mr.  Johnson,  if  we  might  judge  by  his 
speeches  and  declarations  of  a  year  or  two  ago. 
But  for  the  unhappy  hallucination  which  led  Mr. 
Johnson  first  to  fancy  himself  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  then  to  quarrel  with  the  party 
which  elected  him  for  not  granting  that  he  was  so, 
they  would  not  have  found  a  man  in  the  North  to 
question  their  justice  and  propriety,  unless  among 
those  who  from  the  outset  would  have  been  willing 
to  accept  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  as  the  legitimate 
President  of  the  whole  country.  The  terms  im 
posed  by  Congress  really  demand  nothing  more 
than  that  the  South  should  put  in  practice  at  home 
that  Monroe  Doctrine  of  which  it  has  always  been 
so  clamorous  a  supporter  when  it  could  be  used  for 
party  purposes.  The  system  of  privileged  classes 
which  the  South  proposes  to  establish  is  a  relic  of 
old  Europe  which  we  think  it  bad  policy  to  in 
troduce  again  on  this  continent,  after  our  so  fresh 
experience  in  the  war  of  the  evil  consequences  that 
may  spring  from  it.  Aristocracy  can  form  no 
more  intimate  and  hearty  union  with  democracy 
under  one  form  than  under  another  ;  and  unless 
such  a  union  be  accomplished,  or  we  can  see  some 
reasonable  hope  of  its  future  accomplishment,  we 
are  as  far  from  our  object  as  ever. 

The  plan  proposed  disfranchises  no  one,  does 
not  even  interfere  with  the  right  of  the  States  to 
settle  the  conditions  of  the  franchise.  It  merely 
asks  that  the  privilege  shall  be  alike  within  reach 
of  all,  attainable  on  the  same  terms  by  those  who 
have  shown  themselves  our  friends  as  by  those 


THE  SE  WARD-JOHNS  ON  REACTION.     291 

whose  hands  were  so  lately  red  with  the  blood  of 
our  nearest  and  dearest.  We  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  number  of  actual  loyalists  at  the  South, 
but  with  the  number  of  possible  ones.  The  ques 
tion  is  not  how  many  now  exist  there,  and  what 
are  their  rights,  but  how  many  may  be  made  to 
exist  there,  and  by  what  means.  The  duty  of  the 
country  to  itself  transcends  all  private  claims  or 
class  interests.  And  when  people  speak  of  "the 
South,"  do  they  very  clearly  define  to  themselves 
what  they  mean  by  the  words  ?  Do  they  not  really 
mean,  without  knowing  it,  the  small  body  of  dan 
gerous  men  who  have  misguided  that  part  of  the 
country  to  its  own  ruin,  and  almost  to  that  of  the 
Republic  ?  In  the  mind  of  our  government  the 
South  should  have  no  such  narrow  meaning.  It 
should  see  behind  the  conspirators  of  yesterday 
an  innumerable  throng  of  dusky  faces,  with  their 
dumb  appeal,  not  to  its  mercy,  its  generosity,  or 
even  its  gratitude,  but  to  its  plighted  faith,  to  the 
solemn  engagement  of  its  chief  magistrate  and 
their  martyr.  Any  theory  of  the  South  which 
leaves  out  the  negro  is  a  scandal  and  reproach  to 
our  honesty  ;  any  attempt  at  another  of  those  fatal 
compromises  which  ignore  his  claims  upon  us,  but 
cannot  ignore  his  claims  upon  nature  and  God  and 
that  inevitable  future  which  we  may  hope  to  put 
far  from  us,  but  which  is  even  now  at  our  door, 
would  be  an  imputation  on  our  judgment,  and  an 
acknowledgment  that  we  were  unworthy  to  measure 
our  strength  with  a  great  occasion  when  it  met  us 
face  to  face. 


292  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

We  are  very  far  from  joining  in  the  unfeeling 
outcry  which  is  sometimes   raised    by  thoughtless 
persons  against  the  Southern  people,  because  they 
decorate  with  flowers  the  graves  of  their  dead  sol 
diers,  and  cherish  the  memory  of  those  who  fell  in 
the  defence  of  a  cause  which  they  could  not  see  to 
be  already  fallen  before  they  entered  its  service. 
They  have  won  our  respect,  the  people  of  Virginia 
especially,  by  their  devotion  and  endurance  in  sus 
taining  what  they  believed  to  be  their   righteous 
quarrel.     They  would  rather  deserve  our  reproba 
tion,  if  they  were  wanting  in  these  tributes  to  nat 
ural  and  human  feeling.     They  are  as  harmless  as 
the  monument  to  the  memory  of  those  who  fell  for 
the  Pretender,  which   McDonald   of   Glenaladale 
raised  after  the  last  of  the  Stuarts  was  in  his  grave. 
Let  us  sympathize  with  and  respect  all  such  exhibi 
tions  of  natural  feeling.     But  at  the  same  time  let 
us  take  care  that  it  shall  not  be  at  the  risk  of  nis 
life  that  the  poor  black  shall  fling  his  tribute  on 
the  turf  of  those  who  died,  with  equal  sacrifice  of 
self,  in  a  better  cause.     Let  us  see  to  it  that  the 
Union  men  of  the  South  shall  be  safe  in  declaring 
and  advocating  the  reasons  of  their  faith  in  a  cause 
which  we  believe  to  be  sacred.     Let  us  secure  such 
opportunities   of   education  to   the  masses  of   the 
Southern  people,  whether  white  or  black,  as  shall 
make  any  future  rebellion  impracticable,  and  ren 
der  it  possible  for  the  dead  of  both  sides  to  sleep 
peaceably  together  under  the  safeguard  of  a  com 
mon  humanity,  while  the  living  dwell  under   the 
protection  of  a  nationality  which  both  shall  value 


THE  SE WARD-JOHNS ON  REACTION.     293 

alike.  Let  us  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  a  few 
ambitious  madmen  to  shake,  though  they  could 
not  endanger,  the  foundations  of  a  structure  which 
enshrines  the  better  hope  of  mankind.  When  Con 
gress  shall  again  come  together,  strong  in  the  sym 
pathy  of  a  united  people,  let  them  show  a  dignity 
equal  to  the  importance  of  the  crisis.  Let  them 
give  the  President  a  proof  of  their  patriotism,  not 
only  by  allowing  him  the  opportunity,  but  by  mak 
ing  it  easy  for  him,  to  return  to  the  national  posi 
tion  he  once  occupied.  Let  them  not  lower  their 
own  dignity  and  that  of  the  nation  by  any  bandy 
ing  of  reproaches  with  the  Executive.  The  cause 
which  we  all  have  at  heart  is  vulgarized  by  any  lit 
tleness  or  show  of  personal  resentment  in  its  repre 
sentatives,  and  is  of  too  serious  import  to  admit  of 
any  childishness  or  trifling.  Let  there  be  no  more 
foolish  talk  of  impeachment  for  what  is  at  best  a 
poor  infirmity  of  na,ture,  and  could  only  be  raised 
into  a  harmful  importance  by  being  invested  with 
the  dignity  of  a  crime  against  the  state.  Nothing 
could  be  more  unwise  than  to  entangle  in  legal 
quibbles  a  cause  so  strong  in  its  moral  grounds,  so 
transparent  in  its  equity,  and  so  plain  to  the  hum 
blest  apprehension  in  its  political  justice  and  neces 
sity.  We  have  already  one  criminal  half  turned 
martyr  at  Fortress  Monroe ;  we  should  be  in  no 
hurry  to  make  another  out  of  even  more  vulgar 
material,  —  for  unhappily  martyrs  are  not  Mercu 
ries.  We  have  only  to  be  unswervingly  faithful  to 
what  is  the  true  America  of  our  hope  and  belief, 
and  whatever  is  American  will  rise  from  one  end 


294  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

of  the  country  to  the  other  instinctively  to  our  side, 
with  more  than  ample  means  of  present  succor  and 
of  final  triumph.  It  is  only  by  being  loyal  and 
helpful  to  Truth  that  men  learn  at  last  how  loyal 
and  helpful  she  can  be  to  them. 


THE  PLACE  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  IN 
POLITICS.1 

I  HAVE  not  been  so  much  surprised  as  perhaps  I 
ought  to  have  been  to  learn  that,  in  the  opinion  of 
some  of  our  leading  politicians  and  of  many  of 
our  newspapers,  men  of  scholarly  minds  are  ipso 
facto  debarred  from  forming  any  judgment  on  pub 
lic  affairs ;  or,  if  they  should  be  so  unscrupulous 
as  to  do  so,  that  they  must  at  least  refrain  from 
communicating  it  to  their  fellow-citizens.  One 
eminent  gentleman  has  even  gone  so  far  as  to  sneer 
at  school-books  as  sources  of  information.  If  he 
had  a  chance,  he  would  perhaps  take  a  hint  from 
what  is  fabled  of  the  Caliph  Omar,  and  burn  our 
libraries :  because  if  they  contained  doctrine  not  to 
be  found  in  his  speeches,  they  would  be  harmful, 
while  if  the  doctrine,  judged  by  that  test,  were 
orthodox,  they  would  be  useless.  Books  have 
hitherto  been  supposed  to  be  armories  of  human 
experience,  where  we  might  equip  ourselves  for 
the  battles  of  opinion  while  we  had  yet  vigor  and 
hopefulness  enough  left  to  make  our  weapons  of 
some  avail. 

Through  books  the  youngest  of  us  could  con- 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  Reform  Club  of  New  York, 
at  Steinway  Hall,  April  13,  1888. 


296  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

verse  with  more  generations  than  Nestor ;  could 
attain  that  ripened  judgment  which  is  the  privilege 
of  old  age  without  old  age's  drawbacks  and  dimi 
nutions.  This  has  been  the  opinion  of  many  men, 
not  reckoned  the  least  wise  in  their  generation. 
But  they  were  mistaken,  it  seems.  I  looked  round 
with  saddened  wonder  at  the  costly  apparatus  of 
school-houses  provided  by  our  ancestors  to  the 
avowed  end  that  "  good  learning  might  not  cease 
from  among  us,"  at  the  libraries  and  universities 
by  the  founding  of  which  our  rich  men  seek  to 
atone  for  their  too  rapidly  agglomerated  wealth, 
and  said  to  myself,  "  What  a  wasteful  blunder  we 
have  been  making !  "  Then  it  suddenly  occurred 
to  me  that  this  putting  of  culture  under  the  ban 
might  be,  after  all,  but  a  more  subtle  application 
of  the  American  System,  as  it  is  called,  which 
would  exclude  all  foreign  experience,  as  well  as 
the  raw  material  of  it,  till  we  had  built  up  an  ex 
perience  of  our  own  at  the  same  cost  of  mistake 
and  retribution  which  is  its  unvarying  price.  This 
might  indeed  flatter  my  pride  of  country,  though 
it  left  me,  as  Grumio  says,  to  "  return  unexperienced 
to  my  grave." 

But  if  we  are  forbidden  to  seek  knowledge  in 
books,  what  is  the  alternative  ?  I  could  think  of 
none  unless  it  were  immediate  inspiration.  It  is 
true  that  I  could  not  see  that  any  authentic  marks 
of  it  were  revealed  by  the  advocates  of  this  novel 
theory.  They  keep  their  secret  remarkably  well. 
No  doubt  inspiration,  like  money,  is  a  very  handy 
thing  to  have,  and  if  I  should  ever  see  an  adver- 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     297 

tisement  of  any  shop  where  it  could  be  bought,  even 
at  second  hand,  I  would  lay  in  a  stock  of  it  forth 
with.  It  is  more  convenient  than  knowledge,  for, 
like  certain  articles  of  wearing  apparel,  it  is  adjust 
able  to  the  prevailing  taste  of  the  moment  in  any 
part  of  the  country.  It  seems  more  studious  of 
the  traditions  and  prejudices  of  the  multitude  than 
the  utterances  of  Isaiah  were  wont  to  be.  I  must 
frankly  confess  at  the  outset  that  I  come  to  you 
wholly  unprovided  with  this  precious  commodity.  I 
must  also  admit  that  I  am  a  book-man,  that  I  am 
old-fashioned  enough  to  have  read  many  books, 
and  that  I  hope  to  read  many  more.  I  find  them 
easier  reading  than  some  other  kinds  of  printed 
matter.  I  appear  before  you,  therefore,  with  some 
diffidence,  and  shall  make  my  excuses  in  the  words 
of  an  elder  who  in  my  youth  was  accounted  wise. 
Lord  Bacon,  a  man  versed  both  in  affairs  and  in 
books,  says :  "  And  for  the  matter  of  policy  and 
government,  that  learning  should  rather  hurt  than 
enable  thereunto  is  a  thing  very  improbable.  We 
see  it  is  accounted  an  error  to  commit  a  natural 
body  to  empiric  physicians  who  commonly  have  a 
few  pleasing  receipts  whereupon  they  are  confident 
and  adventurous,  but  know  neither  the  causes  of 
diseases,  nor  the  constitutions  of  patients,  nor  peril 
of  accidents,  nor  the  true  method  of  cures  ;  we  see 
it  is  a  like  error  to  rely  upon  advocates  or  lawyers 
who  are  only  men  of  practice  and  not  grounded  in 
their  books,  who  are  many  times  easily  surprised 
when  matter  falleth  out  beyond  their  experience  to 
the  prejudice  of  the  causes  they  handle ;  so  by  like 


298  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

reason  it  cannot  be  but  a  matter  of  doubtful  con 
sequence  if  states  be  managed  by  empiric  states 
men  not  well  mingled  with  men  grounded  in  learn 
ing.  But,  contrariwise,  it  is  almost  without  an 
instance  to  the  contrary  that  ever  any  government 
was  disastrous  that  was  in  the  hands  of  learned 
governors."  He  goes  on  to  say  that  "  It  hath  been 
ordinary  with  politique  men  to  extenuate  and  dis 
able  learned  men  by  the  name  of  pedants"  Prac 
tical  politicians,  as  they  call  themselves,  have  the 
same  habit  still,  only  that  they  have  substituted 
doctrinaire  for  pedant  as  the  term  of  reproach. 
Now  the  true  and  mischievous  doctrinaire  is  he 
who  insists  that  facts  shall  accommodate  themselves 
to  preconceived  theory,  and  the  truly  practical  man 
he  who  would  deduce  theory  from  the  amplest  pos 
sible  comparison  and  correlation  of  facts ;  in  other 
words,  from  recorded  experience.  I  think  it  is 
already  beginning  to  be  apparent  on  which  side  of 
the  questions  which  have  been  brought  to  the  front 
by  the  President's  Message  the  doctrinaires  are  to 
be  found.  We  all  know  the  empiric  physicians 
who  are  confident  and  adventurous  with  their  few 
pleasing  receipts. 

Your  committee  asked  me  to  give  a  title  to  such 
suggestions  as  I  might  find  occasion  to  make  this 
evening,  and  I  took  "  The  Place  of  the  Indepen 
dent  in  Politics  "  as  the  first  that  occurred  to  me. 
But  I  confess  that  I  partake  of  Mr.  Walter  Shan 
dy's  superstition  about  names,  and  shall  not  allow 
myself  to  be  circumscribed  and  scanted  of  elbow- 
room  by  the  appellative  I  have  chosen.  I  prefer 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     299 

general  to  personal  politics.  I  allude  to  this  in 
order  that,  in  anything  I  shall  say  here,  I  may  not 
be  suspected  to  have  one  party  more  than  another 
in  my  mind.  I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  Truth 
always  seems  to  have  gone  to  school  to  the  prophet 
Nathan,  and  to  intend  a  personal  application.  It  is 
perhaps  her  prime  virtue  as  a  stimulant  of  thought, 
for  thought  is  helpful  in  proportion  as  it  more  and 
more  becomes  disengaged  from  self,  and  this  can 
not  happen  till  some  sharp  reminder  makes  us  con 
scious  of  that  plausible  accomplice  in  our  thinking 
and  in  the  doing  which  follows  from  it.  Though  I 
shall  not  evade  present  questions  when  they  come 
naturally  in  my  way,  I  shall  choose  rather  to  indi 
cate  why  there  is  a  necessity  that  the  Independent 
should  have  a  place  in  politics  than  to  dictate  where 
that  place  should  be.  I  think  that  something  I 
wrote  forty  years  ago,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  quote 
it,  will  define  my  notion  of  what  is  meant  by  an 
Independent  with  sufficient  exactness.  I  then  said, 
and  I  have  not  changed  my  mind  :  — 

I  honor  the  man  who  is  ready  to  sink 
Half  his  present  repute  for  the  freedom  to  think, 
And  when  he  has  thought,  be  his  cause  strong  or  weak, 
Will  risk  't  other  half  for  the  freedom  to  speak, 
Caring  naught  for  what  vengeance  the  mob  has  in  store, 
Let  that  mob  be  the  upper  ten  thousand  or  lower. 

Four  years  ago  I  was  called  upon  to  deliver  an 
address  in  Birmingham,  and  chose  for  my  theme 
"  Democracy."  In  that  place  I  felt  it  incumbent 
on  me  to  dwell  on  the  good  points  and  favorable 
aspects  of  democracy  as  I  had  seen  them  practi 
cally  illustrated  in  my  native  land.  I  chose  rather 


300  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

that  my  discourse  should  suffer  through  inadequacy 
than  run  the  risk  of  seeming  to  forget  what  Burke 
calls  "  that  salutary  prejudice  called  our  country," 
and  that  obligation  which  forbids  one  to  discuss 
family  affairs  before  strangers.  But  here  among 
ourselves  it  is  clearly  the  duty  of  whoever  loves 
his  country  to  be  watchful  of  whatever  weaknesses 
and  perils  there  may  be  in  the  practical  working 
of  a  system  never  before  set  in  motion  under  such 
favorable  auspices,  or  on  so  large  a  scale.  I  have 
called  them  weaknesses  and  perils  in  the  system, 
but  it  would  be  idle  to  discuss  them  if  I  did  not 
believe  that  they  were  not  so  properly  results  of 
the  system  as  of  abuses  in  the  operation  of  it,  due 
in  part  to  changed  conditions,  in  part  to  a  thought 
less  negligence  which  experience  and  thought  will 
in  due  time  rectify.  I  believe  that  no  other  method 
of  conducting  the  public  affairs  of  men  is  so  capa 
ble  of  sloughing  off  its  peccant  parts  as  ours,  be 
cause  in  no  other  are  the  forces  of  life  at  once  so 
intense  and  so  universally  distributed. 

Before  we  turn  to  the  consideration  of  politics 
as  we  see  them  in  practice,  let  us  think  for  a  mo 
ment  what,  when  properly  understood,  they  really 
are.  In  their  least  comprehensive  definition,  politics 
are  an  art  which  concerns  itself  about  the  -national 
housekeeping,  about  the  immediate  interests  and 
workaday  wants,  the  income  and  the  outgo  of  the 
people.  They  have  to  deal  with  practical  ques 
tions  as  they  arise  and  grow  pressing.  Even  on 
this  humbler  plane  they  may  well  have  an  attrac 
tion  for  the  finest  intellects  and  the  greatest  abili- 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     301 

ties  in  a  country  where  public  opinion  is  supreme, 
for  they  can  perform  their  function  only  by  per 
suading,  convincing,  and  thus  governing  the  minds 
of  men.  The  most  trivial  question  acquires  dig 
nity  when  it  touches  the  well-being  or  rouses  the 
passions  of  many  millions.  But  there  is  a  higher 
and  wider  sense  in  which  politics  may  fairly  be 
ranked  as  a  science.  When  they  rise  to  this  level 
we  call  them  statesmanship.  The  statesman  applies 
himself  to  the  observation  and  recording  of  certain 
causes  which  lead  constantly  to  certain  effects,  and 
is  thus  able  to  formulate  general  laws  for  the  guid 
ance  of  his  own  judgment  and  for  the  conduct  of 
affairs.  He  is  not  so  much  interested  in  the  devices 
by  which  men  may  be  influenced,  as  about  how 
they  ought  to  be  influenced ;  not  so  much  about  how 
men's  passions  and  prejudices  may  be  utilized  for  a 
momentary  advantage  to  himself  or  his  party,  as 
about  how  they  may  be  hindered  from  doing  a  per 
manent  harm  to  the  commonwealth.  He  trains 
himself  to  discern  evils  in  their  causes  that  he  may 
forewarn  if  he  cannot  prevent,  and  that  he  may 
not  be  taken  unawares  by  the  long  bill  of  damages 
they  are  sure  to  bring  in,  and  always  at  the  least 
convenient  moment.  He  seeks  and  finds  in  the 
moral  world  the  weather-signs  of  the  actual  world. 
He  strives  to  see  and  know  things  as  they  really 
are  and  as  they  are  related  to  each  other,  as  they 
really  are  and  therefore  always  must  be  ;  his  vision 
undeflected  by  the  cross-lights  of  transitory  circum 
stance,  his  judgment  undisturbed  by  the  clamor  of 
passionate  and  changeful  opinion. 


302  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

That  this  conception  of  statesmanship  is  not  fan 
ciful,  the  writings  and  speeches  of  Burke  are  ample 
proof.  Many  great  and  many  acute  minds  had 
speculated  upon  politics  from  Aristotle's  time  down 
wards,  but  Burke  was  the  first  to  illuminate  the  sub 
ject  of  his  observation  and  thought  with  the  electric 
light  of  imagination.  He  turned  its  penetrating 
ray  upon  what  seemed  the  confused  and  wavering 
cloud-chaos  of  man's  nature  and  man's  experience, 
and  found  there  the  indication,  at  least,  if  not  the 
scheme,  of  a  divine  order.  The  result  is  that  his 
works  are  as  full  of  prophecy,  some  of  it  already 
fulfilled,  some  of  it  in  course  of  fulfilment,  as  they 
are  of  wisdom.  And  this  is  because  for  him  human 
nature  was  always  the  text  and  history  the  com 
ment.  There  are  no  more  pregnant  lessons  in  the 
science  of  how  to  look  at  things  so  as  to  see  them  and 
into  them,  of  how  to  distinguish  what  is  perennial 
from  what  is  deciduous  in  a  political  question,  than 
Burke's  two  speeches  on  "  Taxation  of  the  Ameri 
can  Colonies"  and  on  " Conciliation  with  America." 
For  if  his  imagination  was  fervid,  it  served  but 
to  warm  his  understanding  till  that  grew  ductile 
enough  to  take  a  perfect  impression  of  fact.  If 
the  one  made  generalization  easy,  the  other,  in 
testing  the  generalization,  compelled  him  always  to 
make  account  of  the  special  diagnosis  of  the  case 
in  hand.  If  one  would  know  the  difference  be 
tween  a  statesman  and  a  politician,  let  him  compare 
Burke's  view  of  the  American  troubles  with  that 
of  Dr.  Johnson,  a  man  of  that  headstrong  com 
mon  sense  which  sees  with  absorbing,  one  might 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     303 

almost  say  blinding,  clearness  whatever  comes 
within  its  immediate  field  of  vision,  but  is  con 
scious  of  nothing  beyond  it.  The  question  for 
Burke  was  not  whether  taxation  were  tyranny, 
but  whether  the  Americans  would  think  it  so. 
Here  was  a  case  in  which  expediency  was  at  one 
with  wisdom. 

But  I  am  happy  in  being  able  to  find  an  illus 
tration  nearer  home.  Never  did  three  men  show 
more  clearly  the  quality  of  true  statesmanship  or 
render  a  more  precious  service  to  their  country 
than  Senators  Fessenden,  Trumbull,  and  Grimes, 
when  they  dared  to  act  independently  of  party  in 
the  impeachment  case  against  President  Johnson. 
They  saved  us  from  the  creeping  paralysis  which 
is  now  gradually  benumbing  the  political  energies 
of  France.  Nay,  while  we  were  yet  in  the  gristle, 
we  produced  statesmen,  not,  indeed,  endowed  with 
Burke's  genius,  though  fairly  comparable  with  him 
in  breadth  of  view,  and  sometimes  his  superiors 
in  practical  sagacity.  But  I  think  there  is  a  grow 
ing  doubt  whether  we  are  not  ceasing  to  produce 
them,  whether  perhaps  we  are  not  losing  the  power 
to  produce  them.  The  tricks  of  management  are 
more  and  more  superseding  the  science  of  govern 
ment.  Our  methods  force  the  growth  of  two  kinds 
of  politicians  to  the  crowding  out  of  all  other  vari 
eties,  —  him  who  is  called  practical,  and  him  of  the 
corner  grocery.  The  one  trades  in  that  counterfeit 
of  public  opinion  which  the  other  manufactures. 
Both  work  in  the  dark,  and  there  is  need  that 
some  one  should  turn  the  light  of  his  policeman's 


304  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

lantern  on  their  doings.  I  believe  that  there  is  as 
much  of  the  raw  material  of  statesmanship  among 
us  as  ever  there  was,  but  the  duties  levied  by  the 
local  rings  of  majority-manufacturers  are  so  high 
as  to  prohibit  its  entrance  into  competition  with 
the  protected  article.  Could  we  only  have  a  trav 
elling  exhibition  of  our  Bosses,  and  say  to  the 
American  people,  "  Behold  the  shapers  of  your 
national  destiny  ! "  A  single  despot  would  be 
cheaper,  and  probably  better  looking.  It  is  a  nat 
ural  impulse  to  turn  away  one's  eyes  from  these 
flesh-flies  that  fatten  on  the  sores  of  our  body  pol 
itic,  and  plant  there  the  eggs  of  their  disgustful  and 
infectious  progeny.  But  it  is  the  lesson  of  the  day 
that  a  yielding  to  this  repulsion  by  the  intelligent 
and  refined  is  a  mainly  efficient  cause  of  the  evil, 
and  must  be  overcome,  at  whatever  cost  of  selfish 
ease  and  aesthetic  comfort,  ere  the  evil  can  be  hope 
fully  dealt  with. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  matters  have 
been  growing  worse  for  the  last  twenty  years,  as  it 
is  the  nature  of  evil  to  do.  It  is  publicly  asserted 
that  admission  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
is  a  marketable  thing.  I  know  not  whether  this 
be  true  or  not,  but  is  it  not  an  ominous  sign  of  the 
times  that  this  has  been  asserted  and  generally  be 
lieved  to  be  possible,  if  not  probable  ?  It  is  noto 
rious  that  important  elections  are  decided  by  votes 
bought  with  money,  or  by  the  more  mischievous 
equivalent  of  money,  places  in  the  public  service. 
What  is  even  more  disheartening,  the  tone  of  a 
large  part  of  the  press  in  regard  to  this  state  of 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     305 

things  is  cynical,  or  even  jocular.  And  how  often 
do  we  not  read  in  our  morning  paper  that  such  and 
such  a  local  politician  is  dictating  the  choice  of 
delegates  to  a  nominating  convention,  or  manipu 
lating  them  after  they  are  chosen  ?  So  often  that 
we  at  last  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  some 
thing  beyond  our  power  to  modify  or  control,  like 
the  weather,  at  which  we  may  grumble,  if  we  like, 
but  cannot  help.  We  should  not  tolerate  a  packed 
jury  which  is  to  decide  on  the  fate  of  a  single  man, 
yet  we  are  content  to  leave  the  life  of  the  nation 
at  the  mercy  of  a  packed  convention.  We  allow 
ourselves  to  be  bilked  of  our  rights  and  thwarted 
in  our  duties  as  citizens  by  men  in  whose  hands 
their  very  henchmen  would  be  the  last  to  trust  any 
thing  more  valuable  than  their  reputation.  Pessi 
mists  tell  us  that  these  things  are  the  natural  inci 
dents  and  necessary  consequences  of  representative 
government  under  democratic  conditions  ;  that  we 
have  drawn  the  wine,  and  must  drink  it.  If  I 
believed  this  to  be  so,  I  should  not  be  speaking 
here  to-night.  Parties  refuse  to  see,  or,  if  they 
see,  to  look  into,  vicious  methods  which  help  them 
to  a  majority,  and  each  is  thus  estopped  from  sin 
cere  protest  against  the  same  methods  when  em 
ployed  by  the  other.  The  people  of  the  Northern 
States  thought  four  years'  war  not  too  dear  a  price 
to  prevent  half  their  country  being  taken  from 
them.  But  the  practices  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking  are  slowly  and  surely  filching  from  us  the 
whole  of  our  country,  —  all,  at  least,  that  made  it 
the  best  to  live  in  and  the  easiest  to  die  for.  If 


306  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

parties  will  not  look  after  their  own  drainage  and 
ventilation,  there  must  be  people  who  will  do  it  for 
them,  who  will  cry  out  without  ceasing  till  their  fel 
low-citizens  are  aroused  to  the  danger  of  infection. 
This  duty  can  be  done  only  by  men  dissociated 
from  the  interests  of  party.  The  Independents 
have  undertaken  it,  and  with  God's  help  will  carry 
it  through.  A  moral  purpose  multiplies  us  by  ten, 
as  it  multiplied  the  early  Abolitionists.  They 
emancipated  the  negro;  and  we  mean  to  emanci 
pate  the  respectable  white  man. 

It  is  time  for  lovers  of  their  country  to  consider 
how  much  of  the  success  of  our  experiment  in  de 
mocracy  has  been  due  to  such  favorable  conditions 
as  never  before  concurred  to  make  such  an  attempt 
plausible ;  whether  those  conditions  have  changed 
and  are  still  changing  for  the  worse ;  how  far  we 
have  been  accessories  in  this  degeneration,  if  such 
there  be,  and  how  far  it  is  in  our  power,  with  the 
means  furnished  by  the  very  instruments  of  de 
struction,  to  stay  its  advance  and  to  repair  its  rav 
ages.  Till  within  a  few  years  of  our  civil  war, 
everything  conduced  to  our  measuring  the  suc 
cess  of  our  institutions  by  the  evidence  of  our  out 
ward  prosperity,  and  to  our  seeing  the  future  in 
rose-color.  The  hues  of  our  dawn  had  scarcely 
faded  from  the  sky.  Men  were  still  living  who 
had  seen  the  face  and  heard  the  voice  of  the  most 
august  personage  in  our  history,  and  of  others 
scarce  less  august  than  he.  The  traditions  of  our 
founders  were  fresh.  Our  growth  in  wealth  and 
power  was  without  precedent.  We  had  been  so 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     307 

fortunate  that  we  had  come  to  look  upon  our  luck 
as  partly  due  to  our  own  merits  and  partly  to  our 
form  of  government.  When  we  met  together  it 
was  to  felicitate  each  other  on  our  superiority  to 
the  rest  of  mankind.  Our  ears  caught  from  behind 
the  horizon  the  muffled  thunders  of  war,  only  to  be 
lulled  as  with  the  murmurs  of  the  surf  on  a  far-off 
shore.  We  heard  of  revolutions,  but  for  us  For 
tune  forgot  to  turn  her  wheel.  This  was  what  may 
be  called  the  Fourth  of  July  period  of  our  history. 
Among  the  peoples  of  the  earth  we  were  the  little 
Jack  Horner.  We  had  put  in  our  thumb  and 
pulled  out  a  plum,  and  the  rest  of  mankind  thought 
that  we  were  never  tired  of  saying,  "  What  a  good 
boy  am  I ! "  Here  is  a  picture  of  our  growth, 
drawn  by  a  friendly  yet  impartial  hand  :  "  Nothing 
in  the  history  of  mankind  is  like  their  progress. 
For  my  part,  I  never  cast  an  eye  on  their  flourish 
ing  commerce  and  their  cultivated  and  commodious 
life  but  they  seem  to  me  rather  ancient  nations 
grown  to  perfection  through  a  long  series  of  fortu 
nate  events  and  a  train  of  successful  industry  ac 
cumulating  wealth  in  many  centuries  than  the  colo 
nies  of  yesterday.  .  .  .  Your  children  do  not  grow 
faster  from  infancy  to  manhood  than  they  spread 
from  families  to  communities,  and  from  villages  to 
nations."  But  for  a  certain  splendor  of  style  these 
words  seem  to  be  of  yesterday,  so  pertinent  are 
they  still.  They  were  uttered  in  the  British  Par 
liament  more  than  a  year  before  the  battle  of  Lex 
ington,  by  Edmund  Burke.  There  is  no  exaggera 
tion  in  them.  They  are  a  simple  statement  of  fact. 


308  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Burke,  with  his  usual  perspicacity,  saw  and  stated 
one  and  a  chief  cause  of  this  unprecedented  pheno 
menon.  He  tells  us  that  the  colonies  had  made 
this  marvellous  growth  because,  "  through  a  wise 
and  salutary  neglect,  a  generous  nature  has  been 
suffered  to  take  her  own  way  to  perfection."  But 
by  that  "  wise  and  salutary  neglect "  he  meant  free 
dom  from  the  petty  and  short-sighted  meddlesome 
ness  of  a  paternal  government;  he  meant  being 
left  to  follow  untrammelled  the  instincts  of  our 
genius  under  the  guidance  of  our  energy.  The 
same  causes  have  gone  on  ever  since  working  the 
same  marvels.  Those  marvels  have  been  due  in 
part  to  our  political  system.  But  there  were  other 
circumstances  tending  to  stimulate  personal  energy 
and  enterprise,  especially  land  to  be  had  for  the 
taking,  and  free  trade  over  a  larger  share  of  the 
earth's  surface  peopled  by  thriving  and  intelligent 
communities  than  had  ever  been  enjoyed  elsewhere. 
I  think,  however,  that  there  was  one  factor  more 
potent  than  any  other,  or  than  all  others  together. 
Before  we  broke  away  from  the  mother  country 
politically,  a  century  and  a  half  of  that  "  wise  neg 
lect  "  of  which  Burke  spoke  had  thoroughly  made 
over  again  and  Americanized  all  the  descendants 
of  the  earlier  settlers,  and  these  formed  the  great 
bulk  of  the  population.  The  same  process  was  rap 
idly  going  on  in  the  more  recent  immigrants.  So 
thorough  had  this  process  been  that  many,  perhaps 
most,  of  the  refugees  who,  during  or  after  the  Rev 
olutionary  War,  went  to  England,  or  home,  as  they 
fondly  called  it,  found  themselves  out  of  place  and 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     309 

unhappy  there.  The  home  they  missed  was  that 
humane  equality,  not  of  condition  or  station,  but  of 
being  and  opportunity,  which  by  some  benign  influ 
ence  of  the  place  had  overcome  them  here,  like  a 
summer  cloud,  without  their  special  wonder.  Yet 
they  felt  the  comfort  of  it  as  of  an  air  wholesome 
to  breathe.  I  more  than  suspect  that  it  was  the 
absence  of  this  inestimable  property  of  the  moral 
atmosphere  that  made  them  aliens  in  every  other 
land,  and  convinced  them  that  an  American  can  no 
more  find  another  country  than  a  second  mother. 
This  equality  had  not  then  been  proclaimed  as  a 
right ;  it  had  been  incorporated  in  no  constitution, 
but  was  there  by  the  necessity  of  the  case  —  a  gift 
of  the  sky  and  of  the  forest,  as  truly  there  as  it 
now  is  in  that  great  West  whose  history  was  so  ad 
mirably  treated  by  Senator  Hoar  a  few  days  ago, 
and  whose  singular  good-fortune  it  has  been  that 
no  disparities  except  those  of  nature's  making  have 
ever  been  known  there.  Except  in  the  cities  of 
the  seaboard,  where  the  habits  of  the  Old  World 
had  to  some  extent  been  kept  alive  by  intercourse 
and  importation,  the  defecation  of  the  body  politic 
and  the  body  social  of  all  purely  artificial  and  arbi 
trary  distinctions  had  been  going  on  silently  and 
surely  among  the  masses  of  the  people  for  gener 
ations.  This  was  true  (in  a  more  limited  sense) 
even  of  communities  where  slavery  existed,  for  as 
that  was  based  on  complexion,  every  white,  no 
matter  what  his  condition,  belonged  to  the  privi 
leged  class,  just  as  in  Hungary  every  Magyar  was 
a  noble.  This  was  the  American  novelty,  no  bant- 


310  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

ling  of  theory,  no  fruit  of  forethought,  no  trophy 
of  insurgent  violence,  but  a  pure  evolution  from 
the  nature  of  man  in  a  perfectly  free  medium. 
The  essential  triumph  was  achieved  in  this  tacit 
recognition  of  a  certain  privilege  and  adequacy 
in  mere  manhood,  and  democracy  may  be  said  to 
have  succeeded  before  it  was  accepted  as  doctrine 
or  embodied  as  a  political  fact.  Our  ancestors 
sought  a  new  country.  What  they  found  was  a 
new  condition  of  mind.  It  is  more  than  question 
able  whether  the  same  conditions  in  as  favorable 
combination  of  time  and  place  will  ever  occur 
again,  whether  equality,  so  wholesome  when  a  so 
cial  evolution,  as  I  have  described  it,  may  not 
become  harmful  as  a  sudden  gift  in  the  form  of 
dogma,  may  not  indeed  prove  dangerous  when  in 
terpreted  and  applied  politically  by  millions  of 
newcomers  alien  to  our  traditions,  unsteadied  by 
lifelong  training  and  qualifying  associations.  We 
have  great  and  thus  far  well-warranted  faith  in  the 
digestive  and  assimilative  powers  of  our  system ; 
but  may  not  these  be  overtaxed  ? 

The  theory  of  equality  was  as  old,  among  men 
of  English  blood,  as  Jack  Cade's  rebellion,  but  it 
was  not  practically  conceived  even  by  the  very  men 
who  asserted  it.  Here,  on  the  edge  of  the  forest, 
where  civilized  man  was  brought  face  to  face  again 
with  nature  and  taught  to  rely  mainly  on  himself, 
mere  manhood  became  a  fact  of  prime  importance. 
That  century  and  a  half  of  apprenticeship  in  de 
mocracy  stimulated  self-help,  while  it  also  necessi 
tated  helpfulness  for  others  and  mutual  dependence 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     311 

upon  them.  Not  without  reason  did  "  help  "  take 
the  place  of  "  servant "  in  our  vocabulary.  But 
the  conditions  of  life  led  to  other  results  that  left 
less  salutary  effects  behind  them.  They  bred  a 
habit  of  contentment  with  what  would  do,  as  we 
say,  rather  than  an  impatience  of  whatever  was  not 
best ;  a  readiness  to  put  up  with  many  evils  or  in 
conveniences,  because  they  could  not  be  helped  ; 
and  this  has,  especially  in  our  politics,  conduced  to 
the  growth  of  the  greatest  weakness  in  our  Amer 
ican  character  —  the  acquiescence  in  makeshifts 
and  abuses  which  can  and  ought  to  be  helped,  and 
which,  with  honest  resolution,  might  be  helped. 

Certainly  never  were  the  auguries  so  favorable 
as  when  our  republic  was  founded,  a  republic  sure 
from  inherent  causes  to  broaden  into  a  more  popu 
lar  form.  But  while  the  equality  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking  existed  in  the  instincts,  the  habits, 
and  obscurely  in  the  consciousness  of  all,  it  was  la 
tent  and  inert.  It  found  little  occasion  for  self-as 
sertion,  none  for  aggression,  and  was  slow  to  invent 
one.  A  century  ago  there  was  still  a  great  respect 
for  authority  in  all  its  manifestations ;  for  the  law 
first  of  all,  for  age,  for  learning,  and  for  experience. 
The  community  recognized  and  followed  its  natural 
leaders,  and  it  was  these  who  framed  our  Constitu 
tion,  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  monument  of 
political  wisdom  known  to  history.  The  conven 
tion  which  framed  it  was  composed  of  the  choicest 
material  in  the  community,  and  was  led  astray  by 
no  theories  of  what  might  be  good,  but  clave  closely 
to  what  experience  had  demonstrated  to  be  good. 


312  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

The  late  M.  Guizot  once  asked  me  "  how  long  I 
thought  our  republic  would  endure."  I  replied  : 
"  So  long  as  the  ideas  of  the  men  who  founded  it 
continue  dominant,"  and  he  assented.  I  will  not 
say  that  we  could  not  find  among  us  now  the  con 
stituents  of  as  able  an  assembly,  but  I  doubt  if 
there  be  a  single  person  in  this  audience  who  be 
lieves  that  with  our  present  political  methods  we 
should  or  could  elect  them.  We  have  revived  the 
English  system  of  rotten  boroughs,  under  which 
the  electors  indeed  return  the  candidate,  but  it  is 
a  handful  of  men,  too  often  one  man,  that  selects 
the  person  to  be  so  returned.  If  this  be  so,  and 
I  think  it  is  so,  it  should  give  us  matter  for  very 
serious  reflection. 

After  our  Constitution  got  fairly  into  working 
order  it  really  seemed  as  if  we  had  invented  a 
machine  that  would  go  of  itself,  and  this  begot  a 
faith  in  our  luck  which  even  the  civil  war  itself 
but  momentarily  disturbed.  Circumstances  con 
tinued  favorable,  and  our  prosperity  went  on  in 
creasing.  I  admire  the  splendid  complacency  of 
my  countrymen,  and  find  something  exhilarating 
and  inspiring  in  it.  We  are  a  nation  which  has 
struck  He,  but  we  are  also  a  nation  that  is  sure  the 
well  will  never  run  dry.  And  this  confidence  in 
our  luck  with  the  absorption  in  material  interests, 
generated  by  unparalleled  opportunity,  has  in  some 
respects  made  us  neglectful  of  our  political  duties. 
I  have  long  thought  that  the  average  men  of  our 
revolutionary  period  were  better  grounded  in  the 
elementary  principles  of  government  than  their  de- 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     313 

scendants.  The  town-meeting  was  then  a  better 
training-school  than  the  caucus  and  the  convention 
are  now,  and  the  smaller  the  community  the  greater 
the  influence  of  the  better  mind  in  it.  In  looking 
about  me,  I  am  struck  with  the  fact  that  while  we 
produce  great  captains,  financial  and  industrial 
leaders  in  abundance,  and  political  managers  in 
overabundance,  there  seems  to  be  a  pause  in  the 
production  of  leaders  in  statesmanship.  I  am  still 
more  struck  with  the  fact  that  my  newspaper  often 
gives  me  fuller  reports  of  the  speeches  of  Prince 
Bismarck  and  of  Mr.  Gladstone  than  of  anything 
said  in  Congress.  If  M.  Thiers  or  M.  Gambetta 
were  still  here,  it  would  be  the  same  with  them ; 
but  France,  like  ourselves,  has  gone  into  the  manu 
facture  of  small  politicians.  Why  are  we  interested 
in  what  these  men  say  ?  Because  they  are  impor 
tant  for  what  they  are,  as  well  as  for  what  they 
represent.  They  are  Somebodies,  and  their  every 
word  gathers  force  from  the  character  and  life 
behind  it.  They  stand  for  an  idea  as  well  as  for 
a  constituency.  An  adequate  amount  of  small 
change  will  give  us  the  equivalent  of  the  largest 
piece  of  money,  but  what  aggregate  of  little  men 
will  amount  to  a  single  great  one,  that  most  pre 
cious  coinage  of  the  mint  of  nature  ?  It  is  not  that 
we  have  lost  the  power  of  bringing  forth  great 
men.  They  are  not  the  product  of  institutions, 
though  these  may  help  or  hinder  them.  I  am 
thankful  to  have  been  the  contemporary  of  one  and 
among  the  greatest,  of  whom  I  think  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  no  other  country  and  no  other  form  of 


314  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

government  could  have  fashioned  him,  and  whom 
posterity  will  recognize  as  the  wisest  and  most 
bravely  human  of  modern  times.  It  is  a  bene 
diction  to  have  lived  in  the  same  age  and  in  the 
same  country  with  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Had  democracy  borne  only  this  consummate 
flower  and  then  perished  like  the  century-plant,  it 
would  have  discharged  its  noblest  function.  It  is 
the  crown  of  a  nation,  one  might  almost  say  the 
chief  duty  of  a  nation,  to  produce  great  men,  for 
without  them  its  history  is  but  the  annals  of  ants 
and  bees.  Two  conditions  are  essential :  the  man, 
and  the  opportunity.  We  must  wait  on  Mother 
Nature  for  the  one,  but  in  America  we  ourselves 
can  do  much  to  make  or  mar  the  other.  We  can 
not  always  afford  to  set  our  house  on  fire  as  we  did 
for  Lincoln,  but  we  are  certainly  responsible  if  the 
door  to  distinction  be  made  so  narrow  and  so  low 
as  to  admit  only  petty  and  crouching  men. 

A  democracy  makes  certain  duties  incumbent  on 
every  citizen  which  under  other  forms  of  govern 
ment  are  limited  to  a  man  or  to  a  class  of  men. 
A  prudent  despot  looks  after  his  kingdom  as  a  pru 
dent  private  man  would  look  after  his  estate  ;  in  an 
aristocratic  republic  a  delegated  body  of  nobles 
manages  public  affairs  as  a  board  of  railroad  direc 
tors  would  manage  the  property  committed  to  their 
charge  ;  in  both  cases,  self-interest  is  strong  enough 
to  call  forth  every  latent  energy  of  character  and 
intellect ;  in  both  cases  the  individual  is  so  con 
sciously  important  a  factor  as  to  insure  a  sense  of 
personal  responsibility.  In  the  ancient  democracies 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     315 

a  citizen  could  see  and  feel  the  effect  of  his  own 
vote.  But  in  a  democracy  so  vast  as  ours,  though 
the  responsibility  be  as  great  (I  remember  an  elec 
tion  in  which  the  governor  of  a  State  was  chosen  by 
a  majority  of  one  vote),  yet  the  infinitesimal  divi 
sion  of  power  wellnigh  nullifies  the  sense  of  it,  and 
of  the  responsibility  implied  in  it.  It  is  certainly 
a  great  privilege  to  have  a  direct  share  in  the 
government  of  one's  country,  but  it  is  a  privilege 
which  is  of  advantage  to  the  commonwealth  only 
in  proportion  as  it  is  intelligently  exercised.  Then, 
indeed,  its  constant  exercise  should  train  the  facul 
ties  of  forethought  and  judgment  better,  and  should 
give  men  a  keener  sense  of  their  own  value  than 
perhaps  anything  else  can  do.  But  under  every 
form  of  representative  government,  parties  become 
necessary  for  the  marshalling  and  expression  of 
opinion,  and,  when  parties  are  once  formed,  those 
questions  the  discussion  of  which  would  discipline 
and  fortify  men's  minds  tend,  more  and  more  to 
pass  out  of  sight,  and  the  topics  that  interest  their 
prejudices  and  passions  to  become  more  absorbing. 
What  will  be  of  immediate  advantage  to  the  party 
is  the  first  thing  considered,  what  of  permanent 
advantage  to  their  country  the  last.  I  refer  espe 
cially  to  neither  of  the  great  parties  which  divide 
the  country.  I  am  treating  a  question  of  natural 
history.  Both  parties  have  been  equally  guilty, 
both  have  evaded,  as  successfully  as  they  could,  the 
living  questions  of  the  day.  As  the  parties  have 
become  more  evenly  balanced,  the  difficulty  of 
arriving  at  their  opinions  has  been  greater  in  pro- 


316  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

portion  to  the  difficulty  of  devising  any  profession 
of  faith  meaningless  enough  not  to  alarm,  if  it 
could  not  be  so  interpreted  as  to  conciliate,  the 
varied  and  sometimes  conflicting  interests  of  the 
different  sections  of  the  country.  If  you  asked 
them,  as  Captain  Standard  in  Farquahar's  comedy 
asks  Parley,  "  Have  you  any  principles  ?  "  the  an 
swer,  like  his,  would  have  been,  "  Five  hundred." 
Between  the  two  a  conscientious  voter  feels  as  the 
traveller  of  fifty  years  ago  felt  between  the  touters 
of  the  two  rival  hotels  in  the  village  where  the 
stage-coach  stopped  for  dinner.  Each  side  deaf 
ened  him  with  depreciation  of  the  other  establish 
ment  till  his  only  conclusion  was  that  each  was 
worse  than  the  other,  and  that  it  mattered  little  at 
which  of  them  he  paid  dearly  for  an  indigestion. 
When  I  say  that  I  make  no  distinctions  between  the 
two  parties,  I  must  be  allowed  to  make  one  excep 
tion.  I  mean  the  attempt  by  a  portion  of  the  Repub 
licans  to  utilize  passions  which  every  true  lover 
of  his  country  should  do  his  best  to  allay,  by  pro 
voking  into  virulence  again  the  happily  quiescent 
animosities  of  our  civil  war.  In  saying  this  I  do 
not  forget  that  the  Democratic  party  was  quite  as 
efficient  in  bringing  that  war  upon  us  as  the  seced 
ing  States  themselves.  Nor  do  I  forget  that  it  was 
by  the  same  sacrifice  of  general  and  permanent  in 
terests  to  the  demands  of  immediate  partisan  ad 
vantage  which  is  the  besetting  temptation  of  all 
parties.  Let  bygones  be  bygones.  Yet  I  may  say 
in  passing  that  there  was  something  profoundly 
comic  in  the  spectacle  of  a  great  party,  with  an 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     317 

heroic  past  behind  it,  stating  that  its  policy  would 
be  to  prevent  some  unknown  villains  from  doing 
something  very  wicked  more  than  twenty  years 
ago. 

Parties  being  necessary  things,  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  there  must  be  politicians  to  manage 
and  leaders  to  represent  and  symbolize  them.  The 
desire  of  man  to  see  his  wishes,  his  prejudices,  his 
aspirations,  summed  up  and  personified  in  a  single 
representative  has  the  permanence  of  an  instinct. 
Few  escape  it,  few  are  conscious  of  its  controlling 
influence.  The  danger  always  is  that  loyalty  to  the 
man  shall  insensibly  replace  loyalty  to  the  thing  he 
is  supposed  to  represent,  till  at  last  the  question 
what  he  represents  fades  wholly  out  of  mind.  The 
love  of  victory  as  a  good  in  itself  is  also  a  power 
ful  ingredient  in  the  temperament  of  most  men. 
Forty  odd  years  ago  it  would  have  been  hard  to 
find  a  man,  no  matter  how  wicked  he  may  have  be 
lieved  the  Mexican  War  to  be,  who  could  suppress 
a  feeling  of  elation  when  the  news  of  Buena  Vista 
arrived.  Never  mind  the  principle  involved,  it 
was  our  side  that  won. 

If  the  dangers  and  temptations  of  parties  be  such 
as  I  have  indicated,  and  I  do  not  think  that  I  have 
overstated  them,  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the  best 
men  in  both  parties  that  there  should  be  a  neutral 
body,  not  large  enough  to  form  a  party  by  itself, 
nay,  which  would  lose  its  power  for  good  if  it 
attempted  to  form  such  a  party,  and  yet  large 
enough  to  moderate  between  both,  and  to  make 
both  more  cautious  in  their  choice  of  candidates 


318  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

and  in  their  connivance  with  evil  practices.  If  the 
politicians  must  look  after  the  parties,  there  should 
be  somebody  to  look  after  the  politicians,  somebody 
to  ask  disagreeable  questions  and  to  utter  uncom 
fortable  truths  ;  somebody  to  make  sure,  if  possible, 
before  election,  not  only  what,  but  whom  the  candi 
date,  if  elected,  is  going  to  represent.  What  to  me 
is  the  saddest  feature  of  our  present  methods  is  the 
pitfalls  which  they  dig  in  the  path  of  ambitious 
and  able  men  who  feel  that  they  are  fitted  for  a 
political  career,  that  by  character  and  training  they 
could  be  of  service  to  their  country,'  yet  who  find 
every  avenue  closed  to  them  unless  at  the  sacrifice 
of  the  very  independence  which  gives  them  a  claim 
to  what  they  seek.  As  in  semi-barbarous  times  the 
sincerity  of  a  converted  Jew  was  tested  by  forcing 
him  to  swallow  pork,  so  these  are  required  to  gulp 
without  a  wry  face  what  is  as  nauseous  to  them.  I 
would  do  all  in  my  power  to  render  such  loathsome 
compliances  unnecessary.  The  pity  of  it  is  that 
with  our  political  methods  the  hand  is  of  necessity 
subdued  to  what  it  works  in.  It  has  been  proved, 
I  think,  that  the  old  parties  are  not  to  be  reformed 
from  within.  It  is  from  without  that  the  attempt 
must  be  made,  and  it  is  the  Independents  who  must 
make  it.  If  the  attempt  should  fail,  the  failure 
of  the  experiment  of  democracy  would  inevitably 
follow. 

But  I  do  not  believe  that  it  will  fail.  The  signs 
are  all  favorable.  Already  there  are  journals  in 
every  part  of  the  country  —  journals,  too,  among 
the  first  in  ability,  circulation,  and  influence  — 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     319 

which  refuse  to  wear  the  colors  of  party.  Already 
the  people  have  a  chance  of  hearing  the  truth,  and 
I  think  that  they  always  gladly  hear  it.  Our  first 
aim  should  be,  as  it  has  been,  the  reform  of  our 
civil  service,  for  that  is  the  fruitful  mother  of  all 
our  ills.  It  is  the  most  aristocratic  system  in  the 
world,  for  it  depends  on  personal  favor  and  is  the 
reward  of  personal  service,  and  the  power  of  the 
political  boss  is  built  up  and  maintained,  like  that 
of  the  mediaeval  robber  baron,  by  his  freehanded- 
ness  in  distributing  the  property  of  other  people. 
From  it  is  derived  the  notion  that  the  public  treas 
ure  is  a  fund  to  a  share  of  which  every  one  is  en 
titled  who  by  fraud  or  favor  can  get  it,  and  from 
this  again  the  absurd  doctrine  of  rotation  in  office 
so  that  each  may  secure  his  proportion,  and  that 
the  business  of  the  nation  may  be  carried  on  by 
a  succession  of  apprentices  who  are  dismissed  just 
as  they  are  getting  an  inkling  of  their  trade  to 
make  room  for  others  who  are  in  due  time  to  be 
turned  loose  on  the  world,  passed  masters  in  noth 
ing  but  incompetence  for  any  useful  career.  From 
this,  too,  has  sprung  the  theory  of  the  geographical 
allotment  of  patronage,  as  if  ability  were  depend 
ent,  like  wheat,  upon  the  soil,  and  the  more  mis 
chievous  one  that  members  of  Congress  must  be 
residents  of  the  district  that  elects  them,  a  custom 
which  has  sometimes  excluded  men  of  proved  abil 
ity,  in  the  full  vigor  of  their  faculties  and  the  ripe 
ness  of  their  experience,  from  the  councils  of 
the  nation.  All  reforms  seem  slow  and  wearisome 
to  their  advocates,  for  these  are  commonly  of  that 


320  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

ardent  and  imaginative  temper  which  inaccurately 
foreshortens  the  distance  and  overlooks  the  difficul 
ties  between  means  and  end.  If  we  have  not  got 
all  that  we  hoped  from  the  present  administration, 
we  have  perhaps  got  more  than  we  had  reason  to 
expect,  considering  how  widely  spread  are  the  roots 
of  this  evil,  and  what  an  inconvenient  habit  they 
have  of  sending  up  suckers  in  the  most  unex 
pected  places.  To  cut  off  these  does  not  extirpate, 
them.  It  is  the  parent  tree  that  must  go.  It  is 
much  that  we  have  compelled  a  discussion  of  the 
question  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other, 
for  it  cannot  bear  discussion,  and  I  for  one  have 
so  much  faith  in  the  good  sense  of  the  American 
people  as  to  feel  sure  that  discussion  means  vic 
tory.  That  the  Independents  are  so  heartily  de 
nounced  by  those  who  support  and  are  supported 
by  the  system  that  has  been  gradually  perfected 
during  the  last  fifty  years  is  an  excellent  symp 
tom.  We  must  not  be  impatient.  Some  of  us 
can  remember  when  those  who  are  now  the  can 
onized  saints  of  the  party  which  restored  the 
Union  and  abolished  slavery  were  a  forlorn  hope 
of  Mugwumps,  the  scorn  of  all  practical  politi 
cians.  Sydney  Smith  was  fond  of  saying  that  the 
secret  of  happiness  in  life  was  to  take  short  views, 
and  in  this  he  was  but  repeating  the  rule  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  poets,  to  live  in  every  hour  as 
if  we  were  never  to  have  another.  But  he  who 
would  be  happy  as  a  reformer  must  take  long  views, 
and  into  distances  sometimes  that  baffle  the  most 
piercing  vision. 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     321 

Two  great  questions  have  been  opened  anew  by 
the  President :  reduction  of  revenue,  and  the  best 
means  of  effecting  it,  and  these  really  resolve  them 
selves  into  one,  that  of  the  war  tariff.  I  say  of 
the  war  tariff,  because  it  is  a  mere  electioneering 
device  to  call  it  a  question  of  protection  or  free 
trade  pure  and  simple.  I  shall  barely  allude  to 
them  as  briefly  as  possible,  for  they  will  be  amply 
discussed  before  the  people  by  more  competent  men 
than  I.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  both  are  illus 
trations  of  the  truth  that  it  is  a  duty  of  statesmen 
to  study  tendencies  and  probable  consequences 
much  rather  than  figures,  which  can  as  easily  be 
induced  to  fight  impartially  on  both  sides  as  the 
condottieri  of  four  centuries  ago.  All  that  rea 
sonable  men  contend  for  now  is  the  reduction  of 
the  tariff  in  such  a  way  as  shall  be  least  hurtful  to 
existing  interests,  most  helpful  to  the  consumer, 
and,  above  all,  as  shall  practically  test  the  question 
whether  we  are  better  off  when  we  get  our  raw 
material  at  the  lowest  possible  prices.  I  think  the 
advocates  of  protection  have  been  unwise,  and  are 
beginning  to  see  that  they  were  unwise  in  shifting 
the  ground  of  debate.  They  have  set  many  peo 
ple  to  asking  whether  robbing  Peter  to  pay  Paul 
be  a  method  equally  economical  for  both  par 
ties,  and  whether  the  bad  policy  of  it  be  not  all 
the  more  flagrant  in  proportion  as  the  Peters  are 
many  and  the  Pauls  few  ?  Whether  the  Pauls  of 
every  variety  be  not  inevitably  forced  into  an  alli 
ance  offensive  and  defensive  against  the  Peters, 
and  sometimes  with  very  questionable  people? 


322  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

Whether  if  we  are  taxed  for  the  payment  of  a 
bounty  to  the  owner  of  a  silver  mine,  we  should 
not  be  equally  taxed  to  make  a  present  to  the 
owner  of  wheat  fields,  cotton  fields,  tobacco  fields, 
hay  fields,  which  are  the  most  productive  gold 
mines  of  the  country  ?  Whether  the  case  of  pro 
tection  be  not  like  that  of  armored  ships,  requiring 
ever  thicker  plating  as  the  artillery  of  competition 
is  perfected  ?  But  the  tendency  of  excessive  pro 
tection  which  thoughtful  men  dread  most  is  that  it 
stimulates  an  unhealthy  home  competition,  leading 
to  over-production  and  to  the  disasters  which  are 
its  tainted  offspring ;  that  it  fosters  over-population, 
and  this  of  the  most  helpless  class  when  thrown 
out  of  employment ;  that  it  engenders  smuggling, 
false  invoices,  and  other  demoralizing  practices; 
that  the  principle  which  is  its  root  is  the  root  also 
of  Rings,  and  Syndicates,  and  Trusts,  and  all  other 
such  conspiracies  for  the  artificial  raising  of  profits 
in  the  interest  of  classes  and  minorities.  I  con 
fess  I  cannot  take  a  cheerful  view  of  the  future  of 
that  New  England  I  love  so  well  when  her  leading 
industries  shall  be  gradually  drawn  to  the  South, 
as  they  infallibly  will  be,  by  the  greater  cheapness  of 
labor  there.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  hear  that  called  the 
American  system  which  has  succeeded  in  abolish 
ing  our  commercial  marine.  It  is  even  less  pleas 
ant  to  hear  it  advocated  as  being  for  the  interest  of 
the  laborer  by  men  who  imported  cheaper  labor  till 
it  was  forbidden  by  law.  The  true  American  sys 
tem  is  that  which  produces  the  best  men  by  leaving 
them  as  much  as  possible  to  their  own  resources. 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     323 

That  protection  has  been  the  cause  of  our  material 
prosperity  is  refuted  by  the  passage  I  have  already 
quoted  from  Burke.  Though  written  when  our 
farmers'  wives  and  daughters  did  most  of  our  spin 
ning  and  weaving,  one  would  take  it  for  a  choice 
flower  of  protection  eloquence.  We  have  pros 
pered  in  spite  of  artificial  obstacles  that  would  have 
baffled  a  people  less  energetic  and  less  pliant  to 
opportunity.  The  so-called  American  system,  the 
system,  that  is,  of  selfish  exclusion  and  monopoly, 
is  no  invention  of  ours,  but  has  been  borrowed  of 
the  mediaeval  guilds.  It  has  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  raising  of  wages,  for  these  are  always 
higher  in  countries  where  the  demand  for  labor  is 
greater  than  the  supply.  And  if  the  measure  of 
wages  be  their  purchasing  power,  what  does  the 
workman  gain,  unless  it  be  the  pleasure  of  spend 
ing  more  money,  under  a  system,  which,  if  it  pay 
more  money  in  the  hire  of  hands,  enhances  the 
prices  of  what  that  money  will  buy  in  more  than 
equal  proportion  ? 

Of  the  surplus  in  the  Treasury  I  will  only  say 
that  it  has  already  shown  itself  to  be  an  invitation  to 
every  possible  variety  of  wasteful  expenditure  and 
therefore  of  demoralizing  jobbery,  and  that  it  has 
again  revived  those  theories  of  grandmotherly  gov 
ernment  which  led  to  our  revolt  from  the  mother 
country,  are  most  hostile  to  the  genius  of  our  in 
stitutions,  and  soonest  sap  the  energy  and  corrode 
the  morals  of  a  people. 

It  is  through  its  politics,  through  its  capacity 
for  government,  the  noblest  of  all  sciences,  that  a 


324  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

nation  proves  its  right  to  a  place  among  the  other 
beneficent  forces  of  nature.  For  politics  permeate 
more  widely  than  any  other  force,  and  reach  every 
one  of  us,  soon  or  late,  to  teach  or  to  debauch. 
We  are  confronted  with  new  problems  and  new 
conditions.  We  and  the  population  which  is  to 
solve  them  are  very  unlike  that  of  fifty  years  ago. 
As  I  was  walking  not  long  ago  in  the  Boston  Pub 
lic  Garden,  I  saw  two  Irishmen  looking  at  Ball's 
equestrian  statue  of  Washington,  and  wondering 
who  was  the  personage  thus  commemorated.  I 
had  been  brought  up  among  the  still  living  tradi 
tions  of  Lexington,  Concord,  Bunker's  Hill,  and 
the  siege  of  Boston.  To  these  men  Ireland  was 
still  their  country,  and  America  a  place  to  get 
their  daily  bread.  This  put  me  upon  thinking. 
What,  then,  is  patriotism,  and  what  its  true  value 
to  a  man  ?  Was  it  merely  an  unreasoning  and  al 
most  cat-like  attachment  to  certain  square  miles  of 
the  earth's  surface,  made  up  in  almost  equal  parts 
of  lifelong  association,  hereditary  tradition,  and 
parochial  prejudice?  This  is  the  narrowest  and 
most  provincial  form,  as  it  is  also,  perhaps,  the 
strongest,  of  that  passion  or  virtue,  whichever  we 
choose  to  call  it.  But  did  it  not  fulfil  the  essential 
condition  of  giving  men  an  ideal  outside  them 
selves,  which  would  awaken  in  them  capacities  for 
devotion  and  heroism  that  are  deaf  even  to  the 
penetrating  cry  of  self?  All  the  moral  good  of 
which  patriotism  is  the  fruitful  mother,  my  two 
Irishmen  had  in  abundant  measure,  and  it  had 
wrought  in  them  marvels  of  fidelity  and  self-sacri- 


THE  INDEPENDENT  IN  POLITICS.     325 

fice  which  made  me  blush  for  the  easier  terms  on 
which  my  own  duties  of  the  like  kind  were  habitu 
ally  fulfilled.  Were  they  not  daily  pinching  them 
selves  that  they  might  pay  their  tribute  to  the  old 
hearthstone  or  the  old  cause  three  thousand  miles 
away  ?  If  tears  tingle  our  eyes  when  we  read  of 
the  like  loyalty  in  the  clansmen  of  the  attainted 
and  exiled  Lochiel,  shall  this  leave  us  unmoved  ? 

I  laid  the  lesson  to  heart.  I  would,  in  my  own 
way,  be  as  faithful  as  they  to  what  I  believed  to  be 
the  best  interests  of  my  country.  Our  politicians 
are  so  busy  studying  the  local  eddies  of  prejudice 
or  interest  that  they  allow  the  main  channel  of  our 
national  energies  to  be  obstructed  by  dams  for  the 
grinding  of  private  grist.  Our  leaders  no  longer 
lead,  but  are  as  skilful  as  Indians  in  following  the 
faintest  trail  of  public  opinion.  I  find  it  generally 
admitted  that  our  moral  standard  in  politics  has 
been  lowered,  and  is  every  day  going  lower.  Some 
attribute  this  to  our  want  of  a  leisure  class.  It  is 
to  a  book  of  the  Apocrypha  that  we  are  indebted 
for  the  invention  of  the  Man  of  Leisure.1  But  a 
leisure  class  without  a  definite  object  in  life,  and 
without  generous  aims,  is  a  bane  rather  than  a 
blessing.  It  would  end  in  the  weariness  and  cyni 
cal  pessimism  in  which  its  great  exemplar  Ecclesi- 
astes  ended,  without  leaving  us  the  gift  which  his 
genius  left.  What  we  want  is  an  active  class  who 
will  insist  in  season  and  out  of  season  that  we  shall 

1  "  The  wisdom  of  a  learned  man  cometh  by  opportunity 
of  leisure,  and  he  that  hath  little  business  shall  become 
wise."  —  Ecclesiasticus  xxxviii.  24. 


326  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

have  a  country  whose  greatness  is  measured,  not 
only  by  its  square  miles,  its  number  of  yards 
woven,  of  hogs  packed,  of  bushels  of  wheat  raised, 
not  only  by  its  skill  to  feed  and  clothe  the  body, 
but  also  by  its  power  to  feed  and  clothe  the  soul  ; 
a  country  which  shall  be  as  great  morally  as  it  is 
materially  ;  a  country  whose  very  name  shall  not 
only,  as  now  it  does,  stir  us  as  with  the  sound  of  a 
trumpet,  but  shall  call  out  all  that  is  best  within  us 
by  offering  us  the  radiant  image  of  something  bet 
ter  and  nobler  and  more  enduring  than  we,  of  some 
thing  that  shall  fulfil  our  own  thwarted  aspiration, 
when  we  are  but  a  handful  of  forgotten  dust  in  the 
soil  trodden  by  a  race  whom  we  shall  have  helped 
to  make  more  worthy  of  their  inheritance  than  we 
ourselves  had  the  power,  I  might  almost  say  the 
means,  to  be. 


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